Caught in a Slash
by PoisoningPigeonsinthePark
Summary: Camelot's trapped in a badly written slash fanfiction, causing momentary gender-bending, plotbunny infestations, banjo-related love triangles, cannibalism, a punctuation purge and all fanfictiondom declaring war on one poor author who just can't splel.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Keep in mind that this is the first time I've ever written a fanfiction, so please be gentle with me... **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin. (Duh)**

Arthur was pacing.

He had come to like pacing.

He certainly did it a lot.

He thought that the long, pensive strides he made as he slid across the floor of his chambers probably made him look very decisive and clever. These were the kinds of qualities he thought that a future King of Camelot ought to possess.

As Merlin pattered into Arthur's chambers to find him galumphing along from one end to the other with his hands gripped tightly together behind his back, he thought he looked like a prat. To the secret warlock, Prince Arthur Pendragon seemed neither decisive nor clever: he just looked like he had ants in his pants. (Wait, why was Merlin thinking about Arthur's pants all of a sudden?)

Merlin wasn't bothered about hurting his master's feelings, and so he was about to inform him of his rather blatant clot-polishness, when he was instead gripped by the desire to do something far more disturbing.

This desire made Merlin frown. It made Merlin frown very, very hard.

If Arthur had turned to face Merlin when he finally stopped pacing, Merlin would have seen that the prince's frown mirrored his exactly.

"_Mer_lin," Arthur began, his voice sounding breathy and passionate without him wanting it to, "why on _earth_ am I experiencing the sudden desire to... to..." There was a pregnant pause (which didn't seem to make any sense, as pauses can't reproduce) and Arthur seemed to be plucking words from his head and trying to force them out of his mouth. "To rip off that stupid neckerchief and kiss the naked, pale flesh beneath it?"

"Um..." Merlin had absolutely no idea what to say to that. Under normal circumstances, he would just have assumed Arthur was trying to be funny. However, the circumstances were certainly far from normal; because Merlin was feeling the desperate urge to run up to Arthur and sink down into his firm embrace.

Arthur shuddered, as if he was imagining bits of Merlin that he really didn't care to. (He was.)

Another one of those blasted pregnant pauses loomed into view.

"It's... it's like someone else is controlling my thoughts," Arthur turned to face his servant. "Someone else with a really, really dirty mind." Arthur's 'baby blues' skipped involuntarily towards Merlin's groin, and seemed to get stuck there.

"I have a theory..." Merlin began, but he suddenly found himself panting. He was feeling the need to quench some kind of thirst... and Arthur's lips really did look very wet (this was partly because the prince was licking them, whilst _still_ staring at a certain part of Merlin's anatomy rather determinedly). "You know, all of a sudden, I'm feeling rather peekish. Does that make any sense?"

At last Arthur looked into Merlin's eyes (not that that was much more comfortable, given the intensity of his gaze) "Err... do you mean peckish?"

"I don't know. I think so. I do feel rather hungry..."

Arthur nodded, his blonde tresses swaying in a way Merlin was now finding rather attractive; his fingers twitched as he imagined stroking them...

"I feel hungry too... At least, I think I do. There's this voice in my head that keeps telling me to do everything _hungrily_." Arthur didn't mention that by 'everything' he meant kissing Merlin.

"You do look very venerable right now, Arthur."

Arthur looked bemused for a second. "I think you mean _vulnerable_."

Merlin nodded in agreement, but it was a very sharp, pained sort of nod. All of Merlin's movements had become strained, his entire body looked really tense, as though it was trying to fight itself.

"I think I know what's going on..."

Arthur waited for Merlin to continue, but his manservant seemed to be having trouble speaking. Arthur was damned if he was going to let another bloody _pregnant pause_ take up time that he could spend talking, so he decided to start chiding Merlin; "Please, feel free to take your time _Mer_lin. After all, the longer you stand there playing with your petticoat, the more time I have to think of chores to give you... You know, it's been a really long time since anyone cleaned out the sewers under Camelot with their fingernails..."

"I think we're in a slash."

"Excuse me?"

"A slash... it's a kind of fanfiction."

"What in the name of Gaius' eyebrow is a _fanfiction_?"

"Um... Well, I wouldn't know exactly, because I certainly don't write that kind of thing... not ever... but, well, I heard some stuff from Gwen and Morgana. It sounded pretty graphic, actually..."

"Guinevere? Has someone hurt her? Because, if they have..." Arthur's hand went flying out to his sword, and he looked as though he was prepared to slice the head clean off anyone standing in front of him. Unfortunately for Merlin, he was standing in front of him.

"No, Arthur. No one has hurt Gwen... At least, not physically."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "How else can you hurt someone?"

"Emotionally."

Arthur looked blank.

"You can hurt their feelings?"

Still no response.

Merlin rolled his eyes round a full circuit in their sockets. "Someone make Gwen sad," here Merlin stuck out his bottom lip and rubbed away pretend tears, just to make absolutely sure that Arthur understood.

Arthur had calmed a little, and he now seemed less like an enraged gibbon, and more like a mildly irate orang-utan. Merlin decided to try answering the earlier question, and made a point of leaving Gwen and Morgana out of his explanation: "A fanfiction is a kind of story that some people who live in a land called the _Internet_ write about people like us. They seem to have some kind of power over how we behave, think and feel."

Arthur looked like he was comprehending, which was not something that Merlin was used to him doing first-time-round.

"A slash is a special kind of fanfiction that sort of forces two people to like each other. The only rule is that those two people have to be of the same gender."

Along trundled another pregnant pause (there seemed to be rather a lot of those around lately, they must be randy creatures...).

Arthur flopped down on his bed with a massive sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. I was beginning to think I would have to re-evaluate all of my life choices..." Then something seemed to occur to him. "Wait... so there is some sick, evil person making us do and say all of this _right now_?"

"Yes. And we'll have to do it again and again and again every time someone reads it."

Arthur snorted. "Well... That's not going to be a problem. It's hardly stunningly written, is it? I can only read one in five words, the spelling's so awful, and the grammar is _all wrong_."

Merlin was about to make some sort of side-comment about a pot and a kettle, both of which are black, but he found himself unable to. Instead, he glid across the floor (which seemed implausible as 'glid' isn't a word) towards Arthur, whose legs were getting him up all of their own accord.

"MERLIN! What's going on?"

"It's the plot... It's catching up with us." This seemed obvious to them both as hands snaked around waists and there was some involuntary moaning.

"You buffoon! What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. I guess we could just go with it?"

Merlin regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

"I didn't mean the touching..." he explained as they tried their hardest to spring apart (to no avail) "just the script".

Arthur nodded vacantly, trying to think about something, _anything_, else.

_Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen _

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"

Merlin frowned, as if he was struggling to say something. He screwed his eyes very tightly shut, and he looked almost as though he were trying to read words printed in his eyelids.

"Nope." Merlin sighed. "It's no use. I have no idea what that says. None whatsoever. You're right. The spelling is horrible."

Finally, their bodies managed to tug themselves apart.

"Right! We need to travel to this land of _Internets_..."

"_Internet_" Merlin corrected.

"_Internet_, find this person and order them to stop immediately. This just isn't right. You can't force people to do things they don't want to do! It shows a total lack of respect for human autonomy!"

Merlin didn't have anything to say. _Autonomy_ was the longest word he had ever heard Arthur use, and Merlin didn't want to ask him what it meant.

"I don't think we can _order_ them. That's the problem."

"I am Arthur Pendragon, Crown Prince of Camelot. I CAN ORDER ANYONE TO DO ANYTHING!"

"Shall we test that theory?"

"Fine." Arthur stood completely still, spread his legs wide apart, stared up at the ceiling and bellowed, "I, ARTHUR PENDRAGON, ORDER YOU TO STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!"

Nothing happened.

Was that a good thing?

Arthur shook his head. "No... No, it _definitely _did not work." He stole another glance at Merlin. "_Definitely_."

"We're like two sides of the same coin..." Merlin simpered pathetically.

"STOP IT! You're not even _trying _to resist." Arthur pointed his sword at Merlin's neckerchief and jabbed his collarbone just a little bit. "We need to think... We've managed to resist some of this. How?"

"Well... we always seem to be best at ignoring the, err, urges, when we're insulting the writer."

A plan was forming in the eyes of Arthur Pendgragon. "I see... she must have low self-esteem. We must destroy her by picking at the writing."

"Why did you automatically assume it's a 'her'?"

"What?"

"It could be a boy writing. You don't know."

Arthur scoffed. "What self-respecting male, _other than you_, would describe your eyes as 'deep blue pools of wonder that I want to skinny-dip in'?"

Merlin chuckled. "You think my eyes are 'deep blue pools of wonder'?"

A blush spread itself across Arthur's cheeks. "No. NO. Of course not. That's what she wants me to think." Here he pointed his sword accusingly at the ceiling, and then he grinned, as he noticed something.

"Merlin, where are we?"

Now Arthur had definitely lost it. "What do you mean 'where are we'? Don't you recognise your own chambers?"

"No," Arthur grinned gleefully. "And, if you think about it, neither do you."

Then Merlin gathered his meaning. They had both assumed that they were in Arthur's chambers, because that was what they had been told; but now that they looked more closely, they could see that the place they were standing in was dull and grey and totally unidentifiable.

"This place hasn't been described _at all_..."

They could almost hear furious, panicked typing. It sounded as though someone were going back over their words and trying to add in the odd archway or vase of flowers. Vague sketchy lines started to appear around them, but they contained no depth or meaning.

"This isn't well-written at all."

"Indeed not."

"In fact, if you think about it... I'm not even sure which one of us is talking anymore."

"No, me neither."

"Who is 'me'? Which one are you?"

"I have no idea. I seem to have lost all sense of my own personality."

"A lot of the things you've been saying _have_ sounded rather out of character..."

"How true."

The room around them disappeared into blackness, as the sounds of some poor girl's sobs retreated into the distance.

"I feel a bit bad now," one of them pointed out.

"Yes... me too," the other mused. "She was only expressing her love for us... in an odd way."

Neither of them felt bad enough to apologise, though.

"So... what was that you were saying about slash... and Gwen and Morgana? That sounded rather interesting..."

Two pairs of blue eyes lit up the darkness as some highly inappropriate thoughts of femslash danced across their minds.


	2. Chapter 2

Merlin was not sure at what point during the day he had become a girl.

His morning had been perfectly ordinary, thank you very much; Gaius had offered him an unappealing breakfast that looked suspiciously like brains; he had woken Arthur up on time with a cheery smile and been rewarded for his efforts by having a goblet lobbed at his head (he had an angry bruise forming on the back of his neck as a reminder of this); and he had then been sent off to the stables to spend a good few hours knee-deep in horse manure.

That had been the point at which Merlin had realised something was wrong: he didn't normally wear his long, curly hair in plaits.

He looked down at his frilly pink skirts, and it didn't seem right that what bothered him most was not that he appeared to be cross-dressing, but that he had got poo all over his nice new clothes.

That definitely was not normal.

A single tear wriggled out of Merlin's eye and slithered down his cheek. This just wasn't fair. What had he done to deserve this?

Just then he heard great, clumsy footsteps approaching, and he hurriedly wiped away his tears. He couldn't have people seeing him blubbering: that would just be embarrassing.

Prince Arthur Pendragon was a little surprised to discover that Merlin had apparently decided to become a girl.

"_Mer_lin," he began, rather cautiously, "is that you?"

There was an awkward (if not pregnant) pause.

"Who gave you permission to become a girl?"

At this Merlin squealed and dropped to the floor in a blubbering pile of frilly pink lace. "You think I _chose_ to be like this? Arthur Pendragon, you really are the rudest, most arrogant, most insufferable, most insensitive pig!"

Merlin's voice was several octaves higher than normal, and was trembling as he sobbed.

"You just always say the wrong thing, Arthur! Do you ever think about how _I_ feel? No, no. Of course you don't. All you ever say is: do this Merlin, do that Merlin. Muck out the horses Merlin, polish my armour Merlin, go and fetch me some more sausages Merlin!"

"Well, that _is_ your job. You're my servant: you are paid to _serve_ me," Arthur pointed out rather tactlessly.

Merlin went on as if he hadn't heard anything. "And do you ever say thanks? I don't think you ever say anything nice to me, ever! You work me to the bone, you throw things at my head, and you call me mean names!"

Arthur didn't know what to say. He hadn't dealt with many hysterical women, but he had dealt with enough to know that anything he did say would count against him. Unfortunately, not saying anything at all was apparently just as bad.

"You just don't care at all, do you?" Merlin demanded, glaring at him viciously from under a layer of newly acquired luscious eyelashes.

Arthur would have laughed: it was hard to find Merlin scary when his cheeks were rouged and his lips were pouting. "There, there, Merlin," Arthur sank to his knees and offered his newly female friend an awkward pat on the back. "It's not that I don't care, it's just that this is a slightly unusual situation..."

"Do you think that I hadn't noticed that? You're not the one with... with... these!" He indicated somewhere that made Arthur blush, and then began to twirl his hair between his fingers absentmindedly.

"Yes, well. This is clearly the result of sorcery..."

Merlin scoffed. "Why does everything always have to be the result of sorcery?"

"I'm sorry?"

"NOT EVERYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENS EVER IS BECAUSE OF YOU AND YOUR STUPID CRUSADE AGAINST MAGIC YOU IDLE, BONEHEADED, GAMMON-FACED PRAT!"

"_Gammon-faced?_" Arthur had a slightly incredulous look on his face. Merlin was clearly being irrational. "_Mer_lin..." he continued, after having taken a very deep breath, "I admit that _very occasionally_ I have jumped to hasty conclusions regarding the use of magic. But this is clearly not a normal situation, now, is it? I mean, just look at yourself..." Here Arthur poked one of Merlin's plaits, just to make his point clear. "There is obviously magic afoot."

Merlin sniffled and buried his head in his lap.

Arthur was really rather uncomfortable. In situations such as these, his chivalrous side tended to take over: he felt he ought to be making some attempt to comfort Merlin. But then, it was Merlin. In a dress. There was something about the whole situation that made him either want to laugh, or run off in the opposite direction as fast as his royal legs would carry him.

Arthur coughed awkwardly. "Err... yes. Do you happen to know at what point during today you changed genders?"

Merlin shook his head mournfully. "No. That's the worst part. I was just in the stables, mucking out the horses thinking of ways to hurt you in your sleep and then, all of a sudden, I was wearing a dress and I felt really weepy. You must think I'm so pathetic..." and with that Merlin was sobbing again.

As much as Arthur would have loved to have spent the rest of his day having a heart-to-heart with Merlin, he had numerous princely duties to attend to. At least, he was sure he did. He couldn't remember what they were, off the top of his head, but he was racking his brains for some - any - excuse...

That was why a garbled, "Knights-training-attack-Morgana-sorcery-monster-swordfighting-dog-ate-my-homework-goblin-on-loose-massive-bleeding-cut-in-my-shoulder-going-to-go-tell-Gwen-I-love-her-I-think-I'm-coming-down-with-a-cold-I-have-a-hangover-from-going-drinking-with-Gwaine-shall-we-go-for-a-walk?'" came out.

Merlin let out a long sniff, and nodded bashfully, pulling himself to his feet.

That was the point at which Arthur lost control of himself.

Merlin's lanky body was poking out awkwardly from a frilly pink mess that was now totally coated in horse dung; his ears, which were still abnormally large, were sticking out from behind two curly brown plaits on either side of his head, which were tied with bright yellow ribbons; and his trademark neckerchief had been fastened around his neck with a sparkly brooch. Merlin had never, in the whole of his life, looked more ridiculous.

"Are you laughing at me?" Merlin asked, his lower lip trembling. "Do I... Do I look ridiculous?" Merlin swished his skirt around sorrowfully, as he watched Arthur, eyes pleading.

"No! No - It's not you. It's the situation that's ridiculous. You look... lovely, Merlin."

Merlin smiled sheepishly, and half-curtsied.

Arthur had not approved in the slightest of the twinkle in Merlin's eyes when he had complimented him, and decided that a speedy trip to Gaius was probably the best thing for him.

As Merlin twirled flirtatiously, Arthur only became surer of his decision.

If, upon finishing his lunch, Gaius had been asked what he was expecting to happen next, he would probably have mentioned something along the lines of doing his morning rounds of the lower town, delivering various sleeping draughts and such. He might have said he had decided to pay Uther an impromptu visit to check on his fits of paranoia (since he'd reportedly already accused seventeen random bystanders of sorcery that morning). He might even have had the insight to roll his eyes and inform you that he would probably be spending his afternoon getting Merlin out of whichever near-death situation he had got himself into today.

He would, however, probably not have expected Arthur to come crashing through the door to his chambers with a distinctly female Merlin in tow.

Gaius seemed a little taken aback. _Then again_, he thought to himself, _at least it's something new_.

"Merlin?" Gaius inquired, having eventually discovered his voice. "Is that you?"

"Oh Gaius!" Merlin explained, fresh tears billowing down his face as he ran to embrace the man he considered his father. "Look at the state of me! I'm covered in poo!"

Gaius' eyebrows raised higher than they ever had before (there is not the vocabulary in the English language to describe exactly what they did, but it was very, very special). "Merlin... I should think that the manure is the least of your problems. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to be a girl..."

Merlin broke into fresh peals of sobs as Arthur fidgeted awkwardly in the doorway. When Merlin finally drew away from Gaius and stopped weeping, Arthur attempted to increase the testosterone levels in the room by offering his friend a conciliatory thump on the arm.

It did not have the desired effect.

Merlin yelped in pain, and screeched at his master. "What on earth was that for?"

Arthur had the look of a startled rabbit. "I was only trying to help..."

"How is punching me on the arm supposed to _help_? You prat!"

And then Merlin started crying again. Gaius and Arthur stood around awkwardly, neither of them entirely sure of what to do.

It was Gaius who eventually began conversation: "Was it a magical transformation?"

Merlin shook his head vigorously, and Arthur shrugged. "Is there any other possible explanation?" he demanded, over the sound of Merlin's banshee-like wailing.

Gaius paused and considered whether he ought or ought not to do something. He did it anyway.

The elderly physician toddled over to one of his numerous shelves of books, and pulled from it a long, thin, silver book that was unlike any ever seen in Camelot before.

At the sight of something shiny, Merlin stopped crying rather abruptly.

Arthur drew his sword, and poked the device. "What on earth is it?" he queried, looking a little mesmerised by the sheen of its surface.

Gaius lifted the lid, and the two boys jumped back at an odd pinging sound and the sudden source of light emitting from a strange screen...

It was Merlin who touched it first. He pressed his finger down on one of the raised bits with letters on. "What's it called?"

"I am not entirely sure. The strange man who sold it to me said it was a futuristic device known as a _laptop_. It seems to be entirely devoid of practical use, the only thing I have been able to get it to do is play a strange little game called _solitaire_, which involves little cards that jump around. It seems perfectly pointless... I have, however, been using it to conduct some research..."

Gaius drew a deep breath, and sat down, in the way that old people do when they are about to begin a story; often a story that makes very little sense and is not at all interesting. The story that Gaius is about to tell is not one of those stories.

"I remember having a very _interesting_ conversation with Merlin a few weeks ago," he began. "It was after a certain incident in your chambers, sire. Merlin said that the two of you became possessed by some demonic force that compelled you to behave in a very peculiar manner, did he not?"

Arthur nodded slowly (he did everything slowly). "Yes. He called it a _'fanfiction'_?"

"Well, after our conversation, Merlin made it clear he wished never to discuss the issue again. As much as you know I always try to respect your wishes Merlin, after some extremely disturbing conversations with young Gwen, I began to believe that this was not an issue that would resolve itself if left alone."

"In the light of this new information, unbeknownst to the pair of you, I have been conducting extensive research. It turns out that what happened to the two of you was not simply an isolated incident. There is a wealth of this... stuff... out there. I really do not know how Camelot shall protect itself."

The corners of Arthur's mouth turned down, as if he had just tasted something extremely sour. "Are you telling me that _fanfiction_ is what's happening here?"

"I am not certain, sire, but it seems highly probable..."

"Why on earth would anyone write a story about Merlin becoming a girl?"

"I am afraid this question is beyond even me."

"So... we're in one of these _fanfictions_ right now?" Arthur queried, looking as though he was thinking rather hard about something.

Gaius nodded.

"I'm not going to have to kiss Merlin again, am I? I spent weeks washing my mouth out last time..."

Gaius shook his head, "No, not just yet. I think, and I am only guessing, but I think that we're in a sort of limbo."

"What..."

"Sire, I mean no disrespect by this, but you really must allow me to finish speaking before you start asking me pointless questions. If you let me finish the odd sentence, you might find yourself not actually needing to ask a question at all."

Arthur looked down bashfully.

"These _fanfictions_ are published by their authors in chapters. I believe that we are in one such _fanfiction_, but we are trapped in the period between chapter one and two. You see? That explains why we currently have control over our own thoughts and actions, but, when chapter two commences..."

Arthur looked horrified. "How long do we have to prepare for this?"

"I am sorry to say sire, that I have absolutely no idea."

Gaius and Merlin were left on their own in the physician's chambers. Arthur had long since been told to go and pace incessantly somewhere else; he had stormed off angrily, muttering about some harebrained defence strategy involving quails' eggs, boiling oil and a toothpick.

Merlin had wept some more when Gaius confessed that, since Merlin had been affected by the laws of the reality that they now inhabited, there was absolutely nothing he could do about the fact he had become a girl.

Eventually, after what seemed to Gaius like an eternity, Merlin stopped crying.

The warlock-turned-witch wiped his eyes on the lacy sleeve of his dress, and tried to get control of himself.

"Why am I so emotional, Gaius? Not all girls are like this; Gwen doesn't cry _all_ the time..."

"Indeed not. I think, and you must take no offence at this Merlin, that we can assume you are not a particularly well-rounded female character. I suppose that whoever has trapped us in this dreadful place is more interested in developing a... relationship between yourself and Arthur than making you a role model for women."

"I don't like Arthur..."

"Really, Merlin? Your behaviour earlier suggested otherwise..."

"Urrgh!" Merlin exclaimed, burying his head in his hands. "That's not _me_. Not the real me. It's just, being a girl, well... you know what all girls are like around Arthur, even Gwen. I finally understand it... It's this stupid girly body that likes Arthur, not me. Merlin," he tapped his temple for effect, "thinks he's a useless, arrogant prat who needs to learn to polish his own armour and fetch his own stupid sausages..."

"Indeed." Gaius produced a pair of scissors, and waved them in front of Merlin's face in a slightly demented fashion. Merlin gulped.

"There's no need to look so frightened, Merlin. I have a plan."

Merlin perked up. "Oh goody!" he clapped his hands together in a girly fashion. "Your plans are so much better than Arthur's plans! Arthur's plans always seem to involve me picking a fight with men twice my size... and we always seem to end up in somebody's dungeons..."

Gaius cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Goodness, Merlin. Now that you're a girl you really do seem to like talking... My plan is as follows. Aside from your obvious change in attire, and you hair, you don't look too different. I think that if we dressed you up in your usual clothes, and snipped off your hair, you could easily pass for your usual self..."

"Are you saying that I look like a boy?"

"Merlin! You are a boy!"

Merlin nodded his head, blinking back the tears. "I know that. You just could have been a bit more sensitive is all... I'm having a very hard day..."

"Merlin, you really must try to focus. I am going to chop off these plaits, and you are going to practise your best man voice. Do you think you can manage that?"

That was how Merlin and Gaius managed to spend their evening sitting on the floor, amidst a pile of girly curls, as Merlin made strange oinking sounds that sounded rather a lot like a young choir boy's voice cracking.

Unfortunately, as Gaius snipped, for every lock of hair that he chopped off, another grew in its place. Gaius spent hours and hours furiously slicing away at Merlin's mane - even resorting to shaving it all off at one point - but when the sun rose in the morning, and Arthur's voice could be heard booming all around the castle, as he demanded to know the whereabouts of his lazy servant, Merlin's hair had actually grown a few inches, if that were possible...

It seemed that things would not be as simple as Gaius had hoped.

And then chapter two began...


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: When I first wrote this, I hadn't actually been intending to write anymore. After the response I got for chapter 2, I'm really glad I changed my mind! Just wanted to say thanks to anyone who has read/reviewed/alerted/favourited, it really cheers me up. I have plenty more ideas now, so this story could go on for while... Reviews are always appreciated! Oh, also, mistakes are all mine - I'm pretty new to all this stuff, and I'm not even sure what beta-ing is (I just see lots of people mentioning it in these little pre-story chats) - if you're still reading this rambly note by now then you are a very nice person and I probably don't deserve your attention.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin. Yet.**

**Let the friendly slash-bashing commence...**

Arthur furrowed his brow as he considered how exactly he was going to explain to Guinevere why Merlin was, at that precise moment, wearing a dress and tied to his bedpost.

He groaned.

It was going to be a long day.

Admittedly, it hadn't been a particularly promising one to begin with...

He had spent the best part of his morning dodging the various comments he had received from his knights when they noticed the strange young woman who had been following him around. As the chorus of wolf-whistles grew deafening, Arthur mused how very wrong it felt to be suddenly defending Merlin's honour. Nonetheless, eventually Arthur snapped. He barked at them, in his most impressive big-scary-King-to-be-voice, that his new friend was a lady and was to be treated accordingly.

Sir Leon looked the most embarrassed of all.

So Arthur had assumed that when the knight approached the prince after training, he was going to apologise for his outrageously disrespectful behaviour.

Leon _did begin_ with a bashful scratch of the back of his head and a mumbled apology, but he moved on to something else entirely. "Sire... the young woman who I saw you with this morning, I do not believe we have seen her in Camelot before?"

Arthur inclined his head.

"But... there is something familiar about her... and she has the most marvellous eyes. They are very, very blue. I must confess to being rather taken with her, in spite of her peculiar choice in clothing. I would not be sorry to... err... know a little more of her. Do you think you could recommend me to her?"

The young prince regent looked as though he had been slapped across the face with a badger's arse.

At that very moment chapter 2 of the dreaded slash fanfiction began. It was almost as though the author had been spying on them; as though they knew that this was the perfect time to click '_upload_' in order to wreak the maximum amount of havoc.

A great many feelings that did not belong to him and that he did not like very much suddenly coursed through Arthur's veins.

In a flurry of poorly described sword fighting (the vast majority of which sounded like an extended innuendo) they clashed, clanged and thrust their weapons against one another.

Inexplicable fury spurted from their pores; newly forged hatred spat itself out of their mouths in the form of disgusting insults. And all for the love of a woman who was not, in fact, a woman.

Arthur pinned Leon to the ground, but there was no satisfaction in his victory. There was only room in his mind for Merlin.

The prince whirled up staircase after staircase, storming around the castle in a blizzard of passion. Upon reaching his bedchambers, and hearing the awkward shuffling from within that told him he had reached the object of his desires, he promptly collided with the door.

Picking himself back up and glancing around slyly to check that no one had witnessed his ungraceful fall, he shoved aside the one remaining barrier between him and his lady love. He would move mountains for her, he would retrace the routes of rivers for her, and he would rearrange the sky for her.

He watched the young servant in his room, amassing a pile of soiled underwear.

Sod it; he might even consider tidying up his own mess for her.

Merlin turned around and was immediately confronted by Arthur's loving gaze. Somewhere inside his stomach, Merlin knew he ought to be repulsed by the thought of Arthur looking at him in that way. However, he had lost the ability to think why that could possibly be...

"Merlin..." Arthur began, wiggling his eyebrows in what he doubtlessly believed to be a seductive manner. "I just had an interesting conversation with Sir Leon... Actually, it was more of a confrontation than a conversation..."

Merlin's face dropped through the floor, crashed straight down into the kitchens and landed in the soup intended for lunchtime. _Sir Leon?_ That was what Arthur wanted to talk about? He was sorely disappointed...

"I couldn't help myself. He was making... suggestions about you Merlin... and well... I just loose control around you Merlin. You drive me crazy..."

Merlin wanted to be flattered, but a niggling little something inside him was telling him that this was wrong... Wait? Did Arthur just say he made him _loose_ control?

"Arthur... Don't panic, and please don't be insulted. I'm very flattered by your feelings for me," Merlin chose not to add that he was currently fighting very hard with certain feelings of his own at that very second. "But I think you just told me that I make you _loose_ control. Err... please don't throw anything at my head, but that doesn't make any sense. I think you mean that I make you _lose _control. Also, _I drive you crazy_? You never say things like that; I don't even know what some of those words mean. I don't think that these feelings are real; I think chapter 2 has begun..."

For a little tiny bit of a second Arthur looked hurt and confused. Then he just looked angry.

"You think this isn't real? These feelings are absolutely defiantly real! I'm sure of it!" He drew very close, and a hand stroked a cheek. "I've never been surer of anything."

At that point it took every ounce of awesome Dragonlord power in Merlin's body to whisper the word, "Defiantly?" in Arthur's ear as his voice trembled with repressed laughter.

"Merlin! I wish that you would take this seriously - I am trying to express my deepest feelings... And you know I'm not great with words..."

"Arthur..." Merlin warned him very, very quietly. "I think that you need to step away from me, stop breathing on my neck, and definitely remove your hand from _there_..."

"Oh! Honestly Merlin, you are such a girl!"

Merlin was not impressed. In fact, he looked as though he might just start crying.

"I didn't, like, mean that in a bad way... It's just that I feel so freakin' weird around you..." Arthur paused, and looked confused, as if he were revaluating exactly what he had just said. "I don't understand what I'm talking about," he concluded.

Merlin nodded knowingly. "I had similar problems, but Gaius explained a great deal of it to me. I think that you're talking like an _American_."

Throwing his hands up to the heavens in frustration, Arthur exclaimed, "Merlin! For the love of Camelot, what is an _American_?"

"Well... I'm not entirely sure... But I think it's a name for a particular race of people with a very peculiar way of speaking..."

"So... we're in one of these _fanfictions_ right now?"

Merlin rolled his eyes, "Yes, Arthur. You're as sharp as a spoon, as usual."

Arthur frowned but chose to ignore his manservant's comment (largely because he couldn't think of anything clever to say back). He stepped uncomfortably close to Merlin once more and asked him, "Why is it that you are finding controlling your feelings so much easier than I am?"

Merlin gulped. He was not finding controlling his feelings easy. He was not finding controlling his feelings easy at all. But then, he wasn't about to tell Arthur that. "I suppose, Sire, that my mind is simply more agile than yours."

Arthur didn't seem convinced.

"My mind is like a fortress. It's impenetrable; impregnable."

Even Merlin wasn't convinced.

"My brain's like a ninja."

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"I don't know."

"Merlin, what's a _ninja_? Is it like an _American_?"

"I have no idea."

"You said it."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did."

"Fine. I said it. But you've said plenty of things that made no sense. I felt left out."

"Well, _Mer_lin, you're always saying things that make no sense."

"Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean it didn't make sense."

"Yes it does. I am the Prince. If I don't understand something, how can anyone else possibly hope to?"

"I'm surprised there's room in your head for enough brain to be able to understand _anything_, considering how much arrogance is stuffed in there..."

Arthur looked extremely put out, and poked Merlin's chest. It didn't occur to him until a bit too late that doing so was probably a little inappropriate considering Merlin was currently a girl.

"You know, Merlin; I don't think I harbour any actual romantic feelings for you whatsoever."

"No," Merlin mused. "No. Me neither."

They paused.

They found themselves kissing anyway.

Eventually, somehow, they sprang apart.

Two bodies rippled with repulsion. "That was disgusting," their voices chorused.

"Shall we do it again?"

Arthur cocked his head to one side, considering this offer. He shrugged. "Alright then..."

Merlin puckered his lips.

"Aaargh!" Arthur's senses all returned to him in a rush, and he ran to the other side of the room, and threw a boot in Merlin's face. "Stay away from me, you manipulative seductress!"

Rejection, a boot in the face, and being called a 'seductress' was all too much for Merlin. He fell to the floor and wailed.

"We must try to keep control of ourselves!" Arthur insisted, still flinging random objects in Merlin's direction, more out of absentmindedness than anything else.

Arthur tried frantically to regain the upper hand. He turned to the ceiling and began to hurl a string of incoherent insults at the author, in the hopes of repeating his previous success. Unfortunately for Arthur, the author was, apparently, not particularly concerned about what the Once and Future King of Camelot thought about their mother's virtue. The only obvious effect of Arthur's words was to increase the blubbering from Merlin; who had assumed the abuse was being directed at him.

Arthur grabbed fistfuls of his hair, and stretched his face into an extremely pained expression. It was clear that he would get no help from Merlin, who was hugging his knees and trembling in the corner. Arthur took a deep breath: it was down to him to solve this situation now.

He took another look at Merlin.

_On the other hand_, he thought to himself. _Every man for themselves..._

Then he ran for the door.

He ran straight out of the door.

Then he found himself running back into his room again.

Confused, he turned around and tried again.

He ran through the door out of his room, and found himself straight back in his room again.

Arthur sighed.

He might want to leave his chambers, but apparently the author had other ideas.

He would have to think of a plan...

Arthur thought, scratching his chin as he did so, staring off into the distance. He didn't see Merlin spring to his feet and launch himself at him until it was too late.

The pair of them landed, entangled, on the floor. Merlin buried his head in the nearest part of Arthur's anatomy and wept into it.

Arthur tried to ignore the proximity of Merlin's face to his groin, and instead focused on constructing a plan. As Merlin took Arthur's hand in his and squeezed it, expecting to find consolation, plan-hatching proved rather difficult.

"Right!" Arthur exclaimed springing them both to their feet just as Merlin's hands began to wander. "That's quite enough of that."

Merlin did not seem to agree. He attached himself to Arthur's waist and sobbed some more.

"Merlin! If you cannot control yourself I shall have to restrain you!"

Arthur's words simply made Merlin's hold tighter.

"I won't be nice to you just because you're a woman - I'm warning you..."

Merlin sighed, and nestled his face in Arthur's chest. "You smell like soap."

Arthur wrenched Merlin off him and frog-marched him over to the bed, where he proceeded to fasten him to one of the bedposts. Merlin did not seem overly concerned.

"Are we playing a game?" he asked coyly.

"Err..." Arthur's frown was replaced by a look of sheer horror as the meaning of Merlin's words finally registered.

"Merlin! That's outrageous! I took you to be a lady of virtue..."

"Really, Arthur? Do you make a habit of tying _ladies of virtue_ to your bed?"

Arthur was stumped. His jaw hung open and he was dribbling a little bit. Merlin giggled, thinking Arthur looked cute even when he was drooling.

"Now Merlin..." Arthur began again, drawing a deep breath and retreating to the other side of the room. "I need you to do something for me."

"Anything."

Arthur shuddered. "That's nice. I need you to help me with something; I have an idea."

Arthur looked around, waiting for the author to retaliate, to turn him into a goldfish or something ridiculous. Nothing happened. A little part of him was disappointed; he'd always wanted to be able to swim without needing to breathe...

"Merlin: I need you to be manly."

"But I'm a pretty girl, why would I want to be a boy? Boys are smelly."

"That may be so... Does it not feel at least a little strange to be a girl?"

All at once, Merlin stopped fluttering his eyelashes, shock clearly settling on his face. "Why am I tied to your bed?"

"Because you couldn't control yourself... Don't feel bad _Mer_lin, better women than you have failed..."

"But... But you were the one who was behaving stupidly earlier, I was restraining you, I was... I was..." Merlin's eyebrows raised, he was clearly remembering some of his earlier encounter with Arthur. "Oh no."

"Oh yes." Arthur could see the funny side of things now that Merlin was tied up away from him.

"You were saying something about a plan?" Merlin whispered.

"Ah, yes. My plan is simple: be a man."

"I am a man."

"You most definitely are not."

Merlin looked down at his fluffy pink dress, and he saw Arthur's point.

Arthur grinned, but took pity on his friend, and decided to continue with his ingenious plan. "I think that if you can behave in a manly enough manner, we might, sort of, be able to remind your body that you're actually a man. Or, kind of, cancel out all the girliness..."

Merlin did not look convinced.

"Do you have any better ideas?"

"No."

"No, what?"

"No, Sire."

"Thank you." They waited expectantly. "Go on then."

Merlin coughed, trying to lower his voice. "Err... meat."

"Meat?"

"Yeah. Meat. Punching people... Um... Alcohol... Women..."

"Merlin! I said act like a man, not act like Gwaine..."

Merlin tried to slouch, and pulled an expression that made him look as though he was suffering from severe constipation. "Knights! Tournaments! Sword fighting!"

Arthur had covered his face with his hands. There was absolutely no way this would work.

"MOUSTACHES!"

Arthur removed the hand from over his eyes to tell Merlin to shut up, but instantly forgot what he was going to say.

Merlin had facial hair.

He still had long curly girl hair, but now he also had a long curly moustache as well.

Arthur snorted. "You look like the bearded lady."

Merlin wasn't listening. "Anger! Killing people! Not listening! Never asking for directions! I AM ALWAYS RIGHT!"

All of a sudden, Merlin's girl hair retreated back into his head, the blush on his cheeks disappeared and all of his girlish charms trickled away.

The person that stood before Arthur now, tied to his bed, was definitely a man. Although he was still wearing a dress.

"Yes!" Arthur exclaimed, punching the air, and doing a very strange victory dance around the room.

Just then, having heard a wide variety of very strange noises coming from the prince's chambers, Gwen decided to pop in and check he was alright.

She was not prepared for what she saw.

Arthur looked flushed to say the least, he had a stupid grin on his face and he was dancing about. Merlin was wearing a dress and was tied to one of Arthur's bedposts.

Gwen gasped, attracting their attention.

She had always dismissed the rumours she had heard about Arthur and Merlin as merely being vicious gossip... But this was undeniable. She had clearly intruded on a very intimate moment.

If her heart hadn't become trapped somewhere in her windpipe, preventing her from breathing, then she would definitely have begun her awkward babbling by then. As it was, she stood. Silent.

It fell to Arthur to provide an explanation.

Arthur furrowed his brow as he considered how exactly he was going to explain to Guinevere why Merlin was, at that precise moment, wearing a dress and tied to his bedpost.

He groaned.

It was going to be a long day.

They tried their best to explain the situation to Gwen, who immediately set herself to untying Merlin, and nodding sympathetically. It would have been a very difficult story to swallow, if she hadn't had a similar experience once with... _No. _She reminded herself. _That did not bear thinking about_.

The two of them stood awkwardly side by side, looking horribly embarrassed. It would probably have been funny, if there wasn't something akin to jealousy twisting itself around and around inside Gwen's stomach.

She curtseyed, mumbled formalities, and stuttered off, pondering what all of this would mean for her. An attack of this kind on Camelot? It was unheard of; whether they would survive it at all she didn't know...

Her mind skipped back to unwelcome images of Arthur and Merlin, and she shook them away, instead opening the nearest cupboard, rather forcefully, to retrieve the winter linens.

She was most definitely not expecting what she saw next.

Gwaine and Lancelot were crammed together in the tiny cupboard, doing some rather intimate things. They seemed a little surprised to see her. Lancelot's face took on the colour of a tomato.

"Aargh!" she squealed, trying to express herself but falling short. "Oh no, not you to two! I mean, too to... I mean, tutu, I mean... Aargh!"

Gwen flounced away, linens forgotten.

Clearly the inescapable, unstoppable grammatical inaccuracies of fanfiction were spreading themselves throughout Camelot...

Gwaine shrugged, closed the cupboard door, and got back to what he had been doing.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: So... as usual, thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement, I hope you like the next chapter. If you do, you know what you need to do (hint: it begins with 'r' and ends with 'eview')**

Gaius was sitting in the physician's chambers, humming a little tune to himself, playing with a very strange pair of glasses.

He would put them on, snicker to himself, tiptoe over to the window and watch things, take them off, put them on, and burst out laughing again.

It was all very odd.

What was far odder was the sight of Merlin as he threw himself into the room, slamming the door shut behind him, gathered up his skirts and itched at his newly acquired moustache.

"Nice glasses, Gaius."

"Nice dress, Merlin."

Merlin nodded his head, admitting his defeat. He had, once again, been out-bantered by Gaius. "What are you doing?"

Gaius raised an eyebrow. "I might well ask you the same question."

"Oh. Right. I'm not a girl anymore!" Merlin exclaimed, looking incredibly proud of himself.

"So it would seem."

"I was just coming to get some normal clothes..." he looked down at the pink monstrosity he was clothed in. "How could you have let me go out dressed like this, Gaius? I look ridiculous."

"Well, yes, Merlin. But I think that might have a little more to do with the moustache..."

"No, Gaius. This is a hideous dress, and I definitely remember asking you how it looked - you said it was lovely."

Gaius removed the strange glasses from his face and sighed. "Yes, well... I might have stopped paying attention after the third or fourth time you asked..."

"I knew you weren't listening to me!" Merlin huffed, as he pottered off to his room to go and change.

Within a few minutes he returned, and Gaius couldn't deny that it was a real relief to see him back in the usual red and blue, even with that stupid scarf...

"So... what about the glasses?"

"I'm sorry?"

Merlin waved his hand at the ugly green contraption with the thick lenses now strapped once again to Gaius' face.

"Ah, yes," Gaius mumbled, almost as though he had forgotten that he was wearing them; Merlin couldn't imagine how anyone could possibly forget that they were wearing glasses like those.

Gaius removed the strap from around his head with a _ping!_ and handed them to Merlin, with a grin on his face. "They're a strange internet device known as _slash goggles_," he informed the bemused young warlock. "They take a perfectly ordinary, friendly scene, and they twist it. Have a look!"

Gaius scampered to the window like an excited little child, and pointed happily at the knights training. Merlin watched the knights, and he could see nothing unusual. Friendly banter, some backslapping, and, of course, the clanging of swords. What on earth was Gaius so excited about?

"Put the goggles on!" Gaius commanded.

Merlin did, and as soon as he looked out of the window, the scene was a very, very different one. His eyebrows raised themselves in disbelief. "That's... unusual..." he managed to croak out, before whipping the goggles off his head and handing them back to Gaius.

No one ever needed to see Sir Leon doing hip thrusts _quite_ like that.

Ever.

Merlin turned to Gaius, who had the goggles on again, and was giggling delightedly.

"How long have you been doing this for, Gaius?"

Gaius turned to Merlin, his eyes wide and innocent. "Only for a few hours..."

"I think we need to find you a distraction... And I think I have just the right one: Arthur."

"You want to talk about your feelings?"

"What? No!"

"Oh... sorry. I think I must just have been reading too much of this _fanfiction_ stuff. Whenever you talk to me about Arthur in one of those, I always seem to end up encouraging you..."

"I'm not really looking for encouragement Gaius..."

"Excellent. I have no idea what I would say, anyway."

"Thanks: I'll bear that in mind the next time I need to talk to someone about something. Actually, I need you to help me _stay away_ from Arthur."

"Surely that won't be easy, Merlin. You're his servant; you're supposed to be around him all the time."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that."

"Really, Merlin? Why am I not surprised?"

"Gaius, could you take those glasses off? It's just a little hard to take you seriously with those _things _on..."

Gaius seemed a little reluctant, but eventually he complied. "I suppose, Merlin, that you and I shall have to devise a plan..."

.

Uther was bored. Uther was often bored. Today, he was especially bored. He was watching Lord Godfrey's jaw bob up and down repeatedly, and pointedly ignoring the monotonous rumbling coming from it. He knew what Godfrey would be on about. _Taxes this, taxes that_. Uther was bored of taxes. Uther was bored of Godfrey. Uther was bored of life.

That was why Uther was rather grateful, when his eyes swivelled around the room, to note Gaius standing in the corner, wearing a very strange pair of spectacles that made his eyes bulge and look about five times bigger than they actually were, with a childish grin plastered on his face.

He was a little concerned as to what it was about the encounter between himself and Lord Godfrey that could possibly have been considered amusing, but at least Gaius was a diversion. He really did look quite eccentric. Perhaps he had become senile in his old age...

Uther chuckled to himself.

He had told himself a rather funny joke (at the expense of his old friend, of course - but at least he wasn't currently having said friend tortured under suspicion of sorcery). He felt quite proud of himself.

_Oh, Uther Pendragon_, he thought to himself, grinning. _You are a funny, funny man._

"My Lord?" Lord Godfrey's question brought Uther crashing back to the present. Oh dear. He was expected to say something kingly. He sighed, realising the clever joke he had told was only in his head. What a shame: they would never understand the true extent of his wit...

"Yes, yes." Uther mumbled, looking at his boots. "Taxes all good; fine. Good crop... preparations for feast... marvellous... Camelot shall prosper... Death to magic... All good..."

Lord Godfrey had looked pleased with himself, and had apparently taken Uther's reply as encouragement to talk some more. Uther began to tap his toes on the floor in annoyance. He would have to set about employing somebody else to listen to this man's incessant drivel, so he could go and do something interesting...

After what felt like far too long, the meeting ended and the council were dismissed.

As Uther looked down at Camelot through the stained glass windows, wondering sadly to himself when he had become _old_, Gaius approached him.

Merlin and Gaius' plan was not even a little bit ingenious.

"I am afraid, Sire, that Merlin has come down with a very serious case of... err... the lurgy."

"Who is Merlin?"

"Arthur's servant..."

"Oh, yes." _The scrawny boy with the chicken legs and peculiar ears_, Uther remembered him. "Why are you not taking this up with Arthur?"

"Well... you see Sire, this disease..."

"The lurgy?"

"Yes, the lurgy; since it is easily passed between young men, Merlin and Arthur must have no contact at all. I have been spending so much time with Merlin of late that I thought it wise to keep my distance as well... Would you deliver the message to him?"

"Very well, Gaius. Before you leave, I must know: this lurgy, can it be cured?"

"I believe so, Sire. But it may take time for Merlin to heal..."

Uther dismissed Gaius with a kingly wave of the hand, and Gaius scurried off, still wearing his glasses and snickering to himself every time he passed people in the corridors...

.

Merlin watched, baffled, as Gaius flicked through book after book after book. He would tut to himself at what he saw on the pages, and then chuck the book over his shoulder onto to a drastically escalating pile.

"Completely useless..." he heard him mutter to himself.

Merlin decided it was probably about time to intervene. "Gaius, what is going on?"

"Oh... I'm simply discarding that which is no longer necessary..."

"No longer necessary? Gaius! You have spent your life collecting these books... How could you say they were not necessary?"

"Ah, well, Merlin: I have found this wonderful device on the internet. It is called a _Wikipedia_. It has practically every piece of information anyone could ever want!" He tossed another book behind him, missing his target and instead smashing a large number of potion vials.

"Gaius! You're destroying everything!"

"Hmm? Oh, those... They don't matter. Did you know that are large number of medieval remedies are totally redundant? The only useful effect they have is psychological... It's a little thing known as the placebo effect."

"Well... What about this?" Merlin waved a plate of mouldy bread under Gaius' nose. "Explain this, please..."

"Oh. I'm trying to grow penicillin..."

Merlin groaned and grabbed at his hair. "This isn't good Gaius. We shouldn't know these things... This isn't right. I have a really, really bad feeling about _all_ of this..."

"Honestly, Merlin. You are such a doom monger! Why don't you just try looking on the bright side of life once in a while?"

"You want me to look on the bright side of life? Arthur and I are being made to fall in and out of love; you're messing with the very fabric of time; and I've spent my day hiding from Sir Leon. THERE IS NO BRIGHT SIDE OF MY LIFE!"

Gaius simply whistled an irritating little tune, and began to load his books up in a fireplace that may or may not have previously existed.

At that very moment Uther streaked down the corridor stark naked, except for a pair of ladies' knickers that he had fastened around his head, singing a rather rude song about Lord Godfrey's daughter at the top of his lungs.

Gaius raised his eyebrows.

"I thought he was too well-recovered at the council chambers earlier..."

"Gaius; what are you talking about?"

"I went to talk to Uther at the meeting earlier, as part of our plan, where he was meeting with several of the members of the council. I did think it a little odd that he should be running a meeting so very lucidly in spite of his recent fits of paranoia - which I believe were mentioned only yesterday. I think we may conclude that our author is not overly concerned with consistency..."

There was a mad wail as Uther streaked past again in the other direction. The underwear previously fastened to his head had come loose, and so must have now been sitting somewhere in the castle.

Merlin sighed, and flopped down onto one of the wooden benches, watching as Gaius warmed his hands in front of the blazing pile of books.

"So... you told Uther I couldn't be near Arthur."

"Yes, Merlin," Gaius assured him, pulling out his laptop, and setlling down to a night of internet surfing. "The situation is entirely under control."

"Right. What are you doing?"

"I am conducting important research Merlin."

Merlin was not sure what the strange yellow blob skipping across a colourful maze on the screen making _wacca-wacca_ noises was, but he was fairly confident that it wasn't research.

"I think we should compile a list."

"What sort of list?" Gaius sounded disappointed to have his game interrupted. He growled in frustration as pacman was cornered by one of those evil little ghosts and devoured.

"A list of all the places I shouldn't go... So I can avoid Arthur? Like his bedchambers for one..."

"Of course. Well, the stables are absolutely out of the question."

"The stables? Why on earth... Oh. That's nasty. In the stables? Really? With all the horses and the dung... It's hardly a romantic setting."

"Apparently not everybody agrees with you. The kitchens are out, of course. You can't visit Ealdor, you must not go to the forest and you must absolutely not, _under any circumstances_, go to the tavern. Gwen's house might be safe, but then again..."

Merlin let out a screech. "Am I safe in my own chambers?"

Gaius shrugged. "Perhaps. If you lock the door."

This was all too much for Merlin. He buried his head in his hands and contemplated the wretchedness of his life, whilst listening to strange tip-tapping sounds and manic cackling from Gaius.

"ROFL!" Gaius exclaimed, sheer joy lighting up his eyes. "What a moron... _Deep inside her, Morgana knew what she was doing was wrong. She loved her friends and she loved Camelot, but she was in too deep. She had gone too far and there was no turning back. Her hands closed around the dagger as remorse closed around her heart, and she wept, unwillingly, for everything she had never wanted to do, and everything she had never wanted to become_. What a load of utter codswallop! Stupid witch... 'remorseful' my eyebrows... what nonsense. And, send!"

"Gaius..." Merlin mumbled. "Are you still on the internet?"

"Yes. I have just left a flame review. A much-deserved one."

Merlin tuned out after that. He began trying to think of an escape plan: something ingenious and wonderful that would rescue them all from certain doom. He came up with nothing. He sat blankly, listening to the sounds of rain hitting the window in a highly poetic fashion.

There was a murmured "Gaius likes this" in the background.

Merlin did not ask.

Merlin did not want to know.

Just then, as they sat in silence, there was a strange whirring noise; and out of Gaius' USB port wriggled a small, pink rabbit. It would have been cute, if it wasn't foaming at the mouth and eyeing Merlin hungrily...

"Oh dear..." Gaius muttered to himself, as the fluffy tyrant set about attacking Merlin. "I fear I may have unleashed a plotbunny..."

**A/N: Shall we see who can come up with the best song for Uther to be singing about Lord Godfrey's daughter? If you're song's really good, you might just find yourself 'popping up' later in the story... [this isn't a shameless ploy both to get more reviews AND more inspiration... not at all]**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: :) That is a visual representation of how I am feeling i.e. pretty darn smug. Thank you so much to everybody who is being so unfailingly nice about my writing! It's just lovely that people are so kind when they really don't have to be - after all, the internet can be a real tool for being mean to people you don't know. Then again, maybe I'm just being a bit too cynical. As me mam said, _Most people are nice_. Long, pointless rambling aside... thankyou! It really makes my day when I get some good feedback (which, I know, makes me sound sad. But I am sad, so there).**

**Thank you to everyone who has composed a song about Lord Godfrey's daughter thus far. I am still accepting entries, and you can write them in a review, or you can pm them to me ****if you like. **

**I hope you enjoy this chapter... there is more to come, I promise (and yes, it is just going to keep getting more and more ridiculous until one of you puts your foot down)**

**.**

Camelot had become infested with a strange, rabid breed of rabbit. The vicious little creatures had taken to nibbling away at the ears of the royals while they slept; creeping into the kitchens, hiding in the crockery and jumping out at the cooks; and they were breeding like... well... rabbits.

Quite frankly, it was becoming a bit of an embarrassment.

Arthur had had to turn away the third batch of nobles that week; he just couldn't have people seeing the castle in such a state. Whoever the slasher was, they were making his life impossible... It was bad enough that his father seemed to only have a very loose grasp on reality and that he had had to start doing all of his chores himself since Merlin had suddenly become impossible to find; now he had barmy bunnies to contend with as well?

It was all too much.

Arthur let out a slight moan as he twisted in his sleep, slowly becoming aware that he was drifting reluctantly towards waking up. His eyes snapped open, and his suspicions were confirmed: he was definitely awake now. He had no option but to get up and get on with it.

He flung the bright red covers off him, and wondered, not for the first time, why it was that he wasn't wearing a shirt. He distinctly remembered putting one on the night before...

Arthur stood, hands on hips, in his chambers for a minute; hearing, as he often did, what sounded just like the swoons of teenage girls.

He didn't ever mention the sighing in his head at the sight of his torso to anybody, though. Merlin already thought he was arrogant enough...

It was then that Arthur noticed the small, pink bunny making itself at home on his pillow.

Arthur's eyes narrowed, and he deftly grabbed his sword from its sheath on the table, squaring up to his opponent.

It was clear from the long trail of rabbit droppings across his bed that the creature had been there for quite some time.

Arthur drew closer... closer... closer... and...

_SLICE!_

With a loud swish, he plunged his sword straight through his mattress, as the rabbit wisely bounced off out of the door.

"Aaaaarrrrggghhhh!" Arthur let out his fearsome battle cry, as he tripped over whilst retrieving his sword from his bed. "I, Arthur Pendragon, will NOT be outwitted by a bunny rabbit!"

With that he hurtled down the halls after the retreating form of the rabbit; his hair mad, his eyes wild and his torso bare. He did make quite the picture.

Servants stood, frozen in shock, as Arthur charged past them; the knights' drills in the courtyard paused, as they stopped to squint at the strange figure dashing through the corridors and wailing; Arthur sped past the hall in which Uther was currently having his breakfast, and the King halted at the sight of his half-clothed, screeching son, feeling a little disappointed that there was someone in the castle behaving crazier than him.

_No matter_, he thought to himself consolingly. _We shall show him how it is really done later_.

Arthur rounded the next corner, and slowed as he saw the bunny, hopping along, in pursuit of a carrot on a string.

Arthur was damned if whoever was dangling that carrot would get to his rabbit before he did; so, with a final cry of, "Rabbit stew tonight!" he charged at it, ready to plunge his sword into its soft, fluffy body.

Unfortunately, by the time he reached the creature, it had been scooped up into the arms of Guinevere, who was making disturbing _cooing_ noises, and chucking under its chin. She glared at Arthur, a horrified expression painted on her face.

"What on earth do you think you are playing at?"

"Um..."

"You were going to run this poor, fluffy, defenceless creature through with a sword? How could you?"

"Guin_evere_," he pleaded. "You're being unreasonable..."

"Am I, Sire? Why is that?"

"The castle is overrun with these creatures..."

"Which is why _I_ have been capturing them," she explained, wiggling a carrot at him. "As opposed to charging around the castle, half-dressed, screaming like a demon."

Arthur suddenly became aware of his exposed chest, and folded his arms across it awkwardly. "Well, you're at least going to _dispose_ of it, aren't you?"

"I am going to do no such thing!"

Arthur frowned. "But, Guinevere, you... you ate chicken when I stayed with you... You cannot be averse to the killing of..."

Gwen gasped across the rest of his sentence, bringing her hands up to shield the bunny's ears from what he had been about to say. "Arthur Pendragon! Firstly, I am a girl who wears nice, pastel-coloured dresses and flowers in my hair; in a story such as this, I am hardly going to resort to killing bunnies! And, secondly, if you had thought to consult any other members of the castle before you launched your one-man killing crusade, you would have learnt that Sir Leon already attempted it this morning. It seems no mortal weapon can kill them..."

Arthur's face soured. "Creature of magic!" he hissed at the rabbit, which twitched its nose a little in response.

"No..." Gwen explained gently. "Creature of imagination."

Arthur scowled, and withdrew his sword hesitantly. "What are you going to do with it?" he asked her, not taking his eyes off the rabbit's.

"We are trying to gather them all in the dungeons, which is proving a little... um... _interesting_..."

"How so?"

"Well... they have this way of not staying places they don't want to stay... They kind of just appear wherever... It's becoming a little impossible, actually..." she looked down at the creature and grinned, ruffling its ears. "Who's impossible? You're impossible! Yes you are..."

Arthur coughed. He was not entirely comfortable with Guinevere being so close to something she could easily catch such a wide variety of infectious diseases from...

He scowled at the rabbit, warning it not to hurt her.

The rabbit seemed unconcerned.

The two of them stood uncomfortably for a little longer, having entirely run out of things to say.

"Err..." Gwen eventually began, breaking the silence. "I guess I had better get this little fellow off to the dungeons..."

She smiled nervously at him, and, with all of her previous anger having totally dissipated in a way that Arthur would never understand, she dashed off, humming a little song to the filthy creature in her arms.

Arthur waited until she was out of earshot. "The only reason I didn't kill you was because I didn't want to get rabbit blood all over Guinevere's pretty dress."

All of a sudden, Arthur got the ominous sense that the author, who had apparently been looming over the entire conversation, did not appreciate threats being made against cute little bunny rabbits.

He gulped, backing away.

He would pay for that later.

He was sure.

For now he had bigger problems to be dealing with.

His vanishing manservant, for one.

.

"_Merlin!"_

"Assume the position!"

Merlin nodded at Gaius, and hopped straight into the waiting barrel of grain, with only a few seconds to spare before Arthur stormed into the physician's chambers, flustered and angry and demanding explanations.

Gaius set about looking as nonchalant as possible: he stared vacantly at the ceiling and whistled.

"Where is he?"

"I'm sorry, Sire? To whom are you referring?" Gaius asked, whilst casually mixing various lotions and potions.

"Merlin! Where is Merlin? I know he's hiding from me, Gaius..."

"I am sorry to say, Sire; that I have absolutely no idea what it is you are talking about." Gaius stepped over Arthur, who was now lying on the floor, checking under the table for any sign of Merlin. "Since he is clearly not here, I would appreciate it if you would go and look for him somewhere else. I have important work to do..."

Arthur shook his head, and bounded over to Merlin's room.

"He's not in there."

Arthur ignored Gaius, and set about turning Merlin's room inside out anyway.

Gaius turned to Arthur, an extremely unimpressed expression on his face. "Sire, as much as I enjoy having my chamber's ransacked by your good self, I am a physician. I have murderers to catch, lives to save, magical plots to uncover, the usual... I'm really very busy."

Arthur, having concluded that Merlin was not in the room, looked a little sheepish, and began to shuffle away. "Yes, Gaius. I am very sorry to have inconvenienced you..."

Gaius nodded, and gestured for him to hurry up. "That's too kind of you Sire. I suggest that you go back to your chambers and finish dressing..." he advised, with a raised eyebrow aimed in the direction of Arthur's bare chest.

"I've been trying! But none of my shirts are clean, because my servant's _gone_, and I have to do everything myself..."

"That is terrible, Sire... You are being expected to do your own washing?"

"What? No, that's preposterous. I'm supposed to be finding _someone else_ to do it... And that is proving quite a challenge with all of these rabbits..."

"Rabbits, Sire?"

"You haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?"

"THE CASTLE IS OVERRUN WITH FLUFFY PINK BUNNIES?"

"Oh. I'm afraid it had entirely escaped my notice..."

Arthur inched closer to Gaius, an uncharacteristically clever thought suddenly occurring to him. "Guinevere says these rabbits are the result of this _fanfiction_, and since you seem to be the expert, I don't suppose you would know how they are to be disposed of?"

Gaius frowned, and then, with a laugh, he remembered the plotbunny that had escaped from his laptop only two nights ago. "Oh! Of course, Sire. What you need to do is..."

But at that very moment, before Gaius could finish speaking, he fell to the floor with a rather loud thud.

"Gaius!"

Arthur was surprised to hear someone else exclaim Gaius' name just as he did. He turned, to see Merlin, who had emerged from a barrel and was covered in grain.

"You were hiding in the barrel..."

Merlin would have made some kind of remark about Arthur stating the obvious, but he was too concerned about his unconscious mentor for witticisms.

"Gaius!" Merlin yelped again, now cradling the physician in his arms, slapping his face a little. He threw Arthur an accusing glare, "What did you do to him?"

"Me? I didn't do anything... He just sort of fell over..."

"_He just sort of fell over_?"

"Well... Yes. Hang on a minute... He was lying to me... He knew you were in the barrel the whole time..."

Merlin turned to Arthur, and, just as his eyes began to flash gold as he tried to recall the words to a spell that would make him go away so that he could use whatever magic was necessary to save Gaius; a strange piece of parchment flittered down from the ceiling.

"What's that?"

"I don't know, _Mer_lin." Arthur swiped the paper from the air, and squinted at it. "It says it's an _author's note_."

"What does it say?"

"It says: _Don't worry dear readers. Gaius is fine. It's just a little sleeping spell is all. He can easily be woken up by his true love's kiss. By the way, isn't Arthur a massive jerk?_ Then there's a pair of dots and curvy line... together they look a bit like a smiling face. What does this mean? And what is a 'jerk'?"

"I think it's idiomatic. Like dollophead."

"Thank you, Merlin. But what is it?"

"Well that's fairly obvious, isn't it?"

"Evidently not."

"It's a _note_ from the _author_, hence the name: _author's note_."

Arthur looked blank, causing Merlin to mutter something about how secure Camelot's future was under his supremely intelligent leadership.

"But who is Gaius' true love? Alice?"

"Who is Alice?"

"Oh... That old woman who tried to kill your father... Remember her?"

"Merlin, that description happens to fit rather a lot of people: in fact, it fits every other woman I meet."

Merlin nodded his head. "Fair enough."

They paused, considering their options. A small, pink rabbit bounced past the doorway.

"At least he's going to be alright." Merlin pointed out, with a grin. "Will you help me move him onto the bed?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well it sounds as though he's going to be napping for a rather long time; we can't very well just leave him on the floor. It'll do his back in if he's left on the stone for too long, and I won't hear the end of it..."

After transporting Gaius to the bed, Arthur groaned, and looked back down at the dozing physician.

"Now what?"

"Well... I suppose we find Gaius' true love..."

"_Mer_lin! I don't have time to match-make for servants! My castle is being terrorised by _rabbits_! Gaius was just about to tell me what I have to do... I don't suppose you know?"

Merlin shrugged.

"I don't know why I thought you might come in useful _just this once_ Merlin! Why do I bother?"

Arthur turned to storm out dramatically, but he was stopped by Merlin telling him, very quietly, "They're called plotbunnies."

"I'm sorry?"

"The rabbits: they're called plotbunnies." He looked up at Arthur, hurt bubbling beneath the surface of his irises. "I'm not _totally _useless."

"I'm sorry," Arthur repeated; but this time he meant it.

Merlin smiled a little. "I heard you need someone to clean your shirts for you?"

"And polish my armour, and muck out my stables, and mend my trousers..."

Merlin chuckled and shook his head in disbelief, as they made their way down the corridor.

A trail of rabbits, who were heading in the other direction, paused to greet them before continuing on their way.

"How could you not have noticed them?"

"Noticed what?"

"There's my answer..."

"Arthur, what are you talking about?"

"The rabbits, _Mer_lin! How could both you and Gaius have failed to notice the rabbits?"

"Oh, right. Well, we've kind of been locked up in that room for two days."

"Why?"

"I've been hiding from you."

"I gathered that. Why has Gaius been hiding?"

"He likes to be able to spend time on YouTube uninterrupted by Camelot's constant disasters."

"Oh. What's YouTube?"

"I have no idea."

They turned the corner, to find a pair of ladies' knickers sitting, discarded, in the middle of the corridor.

Arthur cocked his head to one side. "I wonder how they got there."

"Trust me," Merlin told him, giving the underwear a wide berth as they continued on. "You do _not_ want to know."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hey there! If you're still reading this nonsensical drivel then I like you, have a gold star, or a digestive bisuit or something... Again, thanks so much to everyone who has read/reviewed/favourited/alerted! You are all very lovely people. I hope you like the chapter - if you do, please review, because it really does make me happier than is probably normal. If you don't like it, then please feel free to review anyway. You have the right to express your opinion! (Just don't be mean, please!) I keep meaning to put this in my author's notes and forgetting... But I've remembered now. Yay. All credit for Gaius leaving a flaming review goes to magnusrae - who is awesome and very nice, by the way. **

**To clear a couple of things up that were mentioned last chapter: the ladies' pants Merlin and Arthur found were the ones previously attached to Uther's head and Merlin was hiding from Arthur in an effort to avoid a reoccurrance of slash.**

**Thank you to everyone who wrote a song about Lord Godfrey's daughter, they were all very funny and VERY rude - chuckle - but there is a winner. And that person is Vegetables-will-have-their-revenge ****(these annoying '-'s aren't in the penname, but stupid fanfiction website won't let me write the name without them - can anyone tell me how to get it to let me do that? other than yelling at it and hitting it with stuff, I tried that already) who pmed hers to me. The song will feature in a later chapter so that you may all share in its hilarity! However, since I liked all the songs, everyone who wrote a song will (I promise) get to feature in the story. :)**

**So... hope you like it! Oh, yeah: I still don't own Merlin. Just in case you were in any doubt about that. **

**.**

Uther paced back and forth and back and forth and back and forth in the physician's chambers. He had a very serious look on his face, as though he was contemplating something of supreme importance; he was scratching what would have been his beard (had he had one), in a painfully clichéd manner.

Occasionally, he whipped around on the spot slightly manically and stared at Gaius.

Gaius was asleep.

Gaius had been asleep for some time.

It seemed as though Gaius intended to stay asleep for a while longer.

Uther had tried slapping his face, and all he got in return was a little drool on his fingers; Uther had tried shaking him repeatedly, but all that happened was that Gaius' head drooped into his chest and his snoring deepened; Uther even dumped a large pitcher of water over his head, and thought for a second that Gaius was awake, because he was talking.

Uther frowned at the physician, wondering if the "Google" and "Twitter" he had mentioned were evil magical creatures coming to wage war on Camelot, but then the old man snored again and it became clear that he was, in fact, still fast asleep and merely talking nonsense.

Eventually, Uther gave in. He lowered himself down onto one of the knobbly benches, and looked sadly at the man who was, probably, his only friend.

"Oh, Gaius..." he muttered, head in shaking hands. "What are we going to do?"

"Oh! Err..." Merlin announced himself ungracefully, tumbling into the room and landing on the floor, coated in horse dung (as usual).

Uther wrinkled his nose and rose to his feet. "You stink, boy! How dare you stand in the presence of your King with such a foul odour reeking from your... your..." Uther's face crumpled and he looked back at Gaius. "Oh!" he exclaimed with a sob. "I just don't have it in me today..."

Merlin watched the noble King of Camelot sniffing pitifully like a small child, and felt like he ought to do something. "From my scrawny body?" he offered helpfully.

Uther peered up at him from in between the fingers covering his face, and nodded. "What else?"

"Err... Well... I interrupted you very rudely... which shows a total lack of respect..." Merlin scratched the back of his head awkwardly, gulping a little.

Uther whimpered, encouraging him.

"Um... yeah... I didn't knock or anything... I didn't know you were in here - even though there's no earthly reason why I should have known that - which clearly makes me an incompetent fool... and, I guess, I'm here... err... wasting your precious time, when I should be helping your son (that is, after all, my job) so I must be pretty lazy too."

All of a sudden Merlin's eyes lit up, "Ooh! I know! You could throw something at me!"

"Pardon me?"

"You could throw something at me... like... like a boot! Or a goblet! Or a pillow! And then you could call me an idiot... or a buffoon... then you could tell me to stop babbling on and on and on and wasting your time because you're an important person, and you've got lots of things to do that are far more important than listening to me..."

Uther nodded, straightening himself out. "Yes... That sounds adequate."

But apparently Merlin wasn't done.

"And then! Then! Then I could say something sarcastic - but actually quite clever- and you could get even more annoyed, and give me a really long list of chores to do!"

"What kinds of chores?"

"Oh, you know... Polishing your armour, sewing up holes in your shirts, scrubbing the floors... Anything you can think of. And when you run out of things, you can just say the list from the beginning again, and I can't question you because you're the prince, but it doesn't really matter because we're sort of friends, and we both know you don't mean it when you throw stuff at me..."

Uther held up a hand to halt the string of verbal diarrhoea right there. "I am not the prince. And we are certainly not friends."

Merlin bit his lip, realising exactly what he had just said. "No, Sire. Of course not. We are not friends. Not that I don't like you..."

Uther scowled. "Enough! I presume it is this incessant chatter that means you are so often found mucking out the horses in the first place?"

Merlin nodded, looking a little bashful. "Yes, Sire."

"Good! At least Arthur and I agree on something... Although if I were him I might have had you beheaded by now... Or at least cut out your tongue..."

As Uther began to look very closely at Merlin's mouth, a vicious glint in his eye, the young warlock decided it was about time to change the subject. "Have you seen the rabbits? The castle's completely overrun..."

"I am the King of Camelot. Do you think I am not enough in possession of my sanity as to notice a rabbit infestation?"

Merlin recalled the other night, when Uther had painted his entire body red, attached horns to his head and wings to his back and spent hours dancing over the castle roof, rambling dementedly that _'no-one was crazier than King Uther the DRAGON! WOOOOH!' _(which, to be perfectly honest, no-one had been in a position to challenge). Merlin also recalled Gaius' mention that the author of the fanfiction they were still trapped in was apparently flipping Uther from crazy to sane to please themselves. He narrowed his eyes in the direction of the author, aware that they probably had a reason for Uther's sudden lucidity. He resolved to tread more lightly around the King, just in case...

That was why Merlin said absolutely nothing in response, whilst several hundred witty comebacks sulked in the corners of his skull, rolling their eyes and muttering sarcastically to each other.

"That is why I am here, boy! I was hoping I might be able to ask Gaius... He is the only person I can think to turn to... He is the only person I have ever turned to at a time of crisis..." Vicious little tears pricked away at the corners of Uther's eyes, and he tried very hard to hide them.

"That's why I'm here too... I just thought he might have woken up..." Merlin chose to ignore the soft sobbing noises coming from the King's throat.

They both looked down at the physician, who snorted a little in his sleep.

"What are we going to do?"

"Well..." Uther muttered, more to himself than to Merlin, "We can't just sit here. We've got kingdoms to run..."

The men rose to their feet, and stole a parting look at Gaius before stepping outside of the room and turning back to each other.

"Sire," Merlin asked, scratching a little at a large lump of excrement on his face. "What are we going to do?"

"_To get rid of the plotbunnies, all you have to do is write them out."_

They both ran back into the room to Gaius, having clearly heard his voice, but he was still fast asleep.

"Gaius?"

Their hands slapped his face, but received no response.

They concluded that they had simply gone mad, and left the room once more, but then...

"_Plotbunnies are ideas for stories. So they can only be disposed of by being written out."_

The pair of them barrelled back in to the physician's chambers once more, but Gaius was still snoring away. Totally oblivious.

Gaius' voice had been as clear as day. But the man was very definitely asleep.

It was so frustrating. Like trying to catch your reflection in the mirror unawares: totally impossible. Every time you turn around, it looks just the way it did before; but you know there was a moment, when you weren't looking at it, when it had its back to you...

"Maybe, because we can't see Gaius... neither can the author..."

"What are you blithering about? What 'author'?"

"Maybe, when we're not in the room, it doesn't exist! Because it's only a story!" Merlin turned to look delightedly at Uther. "When the story leaves the room, the author has no control over what happens in the room, do you see?"

"No I most certainly do not!"

Then a frown settled itself back on Merlin's face. "I'm not sure I understand how to use this to our advantage, though... Wherever we are, the story is too, surely?"

"I demand that you explain yourself immediately!"

"How can I separate myself from the storyline in order to speak to Gaius..."

"EXPLAIN YOURSELF OR I SHALL SEND YOU BACK TO THE STABLES!"

"The stables? I haven't been in the stables..."

"Then why are you covered in horse dung? It surely cannot be a statement of fashion!"

Merlin looked down at his clothes, suddenly very confused. "I don't remember any stables..." he muttered to himself. "The last thing I remember is... is... I'm not sure." And then it dawned on Merlin. "Maybe we don't exist when we're not in the story. Is that right?"

Uther threw up his hands in exasperation, and began to storm out dramatically.

"Wait, Sire!"

"What is it now? Do you have yet _more_ nonsense to spout?"

"What Gaius said, I think it's right!"

"My patience is wearing extremely thin..."

"To get rid of the rabbits, what we need to do is write!"

"Write?"

"Yes! Everyone in Camelot needs to get quills and parchment and start scrawling!"

"We are living in the Middle Ages."

"Hm? What? In the 'middle' of what?"

"I have absolutely no idea. I didn't intend to say that. I am not sure what it means. What I do know is that, in the time in which we live, a large number of the population is illiterate."

Merlin rubbished this idea. "I can read and write. So can Gwen. So can my Mum. Everyone I've ever met can read and write."

"The word 'Mum' doesn't exist."

"What are you talking about?"

"I am the King! Do not question me!"

Merlin shrugged. Uther was clearly just having another crazy spell.

"Excuse me, Sire. I must go and speak to Arthur about issuing a proclamation."

At this Merlin bounded off, ignoring Uther's loud insisting that _he_ was perfectly able to issue his own proclamations, thank you very much. Merlin wasn't going to let Uther command the whole of Camelot to start writing stories and poems; they'd stopped listening to his proclamations when he'd demanded that all the knights wear unicorn horns on their helmets and all the ladies of the court address him as "The Mighty One".

"What are you going to do about Gaius?" Uther bellowed as Merlin sped away.

"True love's kiss!" Merlin told him, throwing a grin over his shoulder. "Don't worry: I've got everything under control..."

.

"Writing?"

"Yes."

"You want me to save Camelot by _writing_?"

"Yes." Merlin paused, inching closer to Arthur. "The power of the written word is not to be sniffed at. It has inspired people to do courageous things throughout the whole of history, it can express feelings that people cannot put into words that they can speak, and it can transport you to whole new worlds of wonder and excitement..."

Arthur looked unimpressed. "Can't we just go slay some big scary beast with a fancy sword?"

"No, Arthur."

"Can't we drink poison?"

"No."

"Get locked up in a cell?"

"No."

"Attack some random guards?"

"No."

"What about a nice, big battle?"

"Arthur... I think you're avoiding the issue..."

"But... but writing is for girls!" Arthur whined, burying his pretty face in the nearest pillow and mumbling. "I don't want the kingdom to think I'm a sissy!"

"Well... If you want to achieve manliness, burying your head in a pillow and whimpering is definitely the way to go about it."

The pillow was thrown at Merlin's head.

Funnily enough, this made Merlin quite happy. With all the slashing, it had been such a long time since he and Arthur had just had a nice, normal argument. _I've almost missed having things thrown at me_, he mused.

A very heavy goblet collided with his right ear.

_Almost_.

"It's not that hard, Sire... You ought to try writing a poem..."

"A POEM?"

Random pieces of weaponry were now being thrown by Arthur at Merlin's head.

Merlin decided it would be best to leave.

Arthur lay back on his bed, feeling exceptionally sorry for himself. "What could _I_ possibly write a poem about?"

Unfortunately, he had apparently given the author an idea.

There was a strange, uncomfortable surge of love within him at the thought of Merlin, and he set about writing him a declaration of love.

.

Uther sat in the physician's chambers, staring at Gaius' face thoughtfully. _What was it that moron had said about 'true love's kiss'? _

He watched Gaius lips, coated in a slight layer of dribble, as they moved with his mad mumblings. Why did they suddenly look so attractive to him?

Uther watched the deeply snoring old man, disturbed by the feelings inside of him. The King had done some very peculiar things of late - perhaps the most so being dressing in ladies' clothing on Mondays and insisting everyone address him as 'Mrs Uther' - but this was a very different kind of peculiar.

The King leaned in and their lips ghosted over each other. Now, this was very odd indeed. King Uther Pendragon had never 'ghosted' over anything (ghosts were probably banned in Camelot anyway, being sort-of-magical); all of his actions were big and bold and daring. They could never be described as being spirit-like. When Uther thought about it too hard, 'ghosting' didn't sound romantic at all: it just sounded kind of creepy. Frankly, it sounded like necrophilia.

Gaius' eyes pinged open, and he looked suspicious. "Sire, what on earth are you doing?"

Uther was a little lost for words. "Gaius! I never knew you felt this way..."

"Felt what way, Sire? What's going on? Where's Arthur? He was just in here, a moment ago, looking for Merlin and asking about rabbits..."

As if on cue, a purple, glittery-tailed rabbit peered in through the doorway, seemed uninterested at what was going on inside the room, and hopped off.

"I am your true love, Gaius!"

"You most certainly are not."

"But... but you were under a spell... It could only be broken by true love's kiss... And I just..."

"You just what, Sire?"

"Well, I just kissed you..."

"What reason could you possibly have for doing that?"

"I really don't know... I sort of became taken over by something else..."

Gaius patted him on the shoulder. "It's alright, Sire. You've done far stranger things this week. However I feel I really ought to assure you that I am definitely _not_ in love with you."

"Oh. Why did you wake up then?"

Gaius looked thoughtful. "You say I was under a spell?"

Uther nodded. "Arthur told me it was done by a powerful sorcerer, I think that boy of yours called it an Aura... or something?"

"An author?"

"Yes! That was it!"

"Ah... Well, that explains it, then."

Uther buried his head in his hands. "Why does everyone keep saying they understand things that clearly make _no_ sense _whatsoever_?"

"This author, who cast the... 'spell'... has trapped us in a thing with a predetermined plot. They have decided who my true love is, and so only that person can break said spell, regardless of my actual feelings. Do you see?"

"No."

"I don't love you, Uther."

"I don't love you either, Gaius."

This was rather unconvincing, as they were holding hands and looking sappily into one another's eyes as they spoke.

"Someone else is forcing us to like each other, Sire. If that makes any sense... It's not based on real feelings at all."

"Oh. Who is doing this?"

"I am afraid I do not know, Sire. If I did, that person would be incapacitated by now..."

"Hmm... Why would they want us to... experience... these... err... feelings?"

"I have not a clue."

"They don't know about what happened on the night of my Coming of Age Banquet, do they?"

"No, Sire. Only you and I know about that."

"Oh. Good. It ought to stay that way... It really wasn't my fault, you know. I was young... I hadn't learnt to handle my drink... You've always had long hair, and those robe things you wear really do look like dresses... I really think anyone could mistake you for a woman..."

"Indeed, Sire."

At that very moment, Alice barged through the door, looking flustered and panicked. She stopped looking panicked when she saw that Gaius was awake. She still looked quite flustered, though. He was, after all, holding hands with the King of Camelot.

"Alice!" Gaius sounded delighted (the awkwardness of the situation hadn't quite registered).

"Gaius..."

"What are you doing here?"

"Merlin sent for me... he said... he said... Well. Never mind. It... it's clearly not important any more... I... I guess I'll go." She nodded at the King, hoping he wouldn't remember her trying to poison him - the situation was quite awkward enough as it was. "Goodbye, Gaius." She smiled at the two old men, but tears weaved their way down her cheeks.

Gaius sprang up, totally forgetting Uther, and ran to hold her. "Oh Alice..." he murmured into her grey hair.

Uther watched the scene with disgust. "Old people should not be allowed to make public displays of affection," he noted.

"If you will excuse me, Sire, you yourself are no spring chicken," Gaius told him with a raised eyebrow.

"I take great offence at that!" Uther howled, springing to his feet, about to declare war or a duel or a dance-off or something.

But before he could get to whatever it was he was planning on screeching next, they were interrupted by the sight of Arthur chasing Merlin down the halls, showering him with flower petals.

Merlin charged into the room faster than he ever had before and slammed the door shut behind him, keeping it closed with the weight of his back pressed up against it.

The four occupants of the physician's chambers stood, speechless, as Arthur professed his love through the medium of an extremely shabby poem.

"_Oh Merlin! With eyes so brown_

_They make me want to drown_

_In your perfection!_

_Your selection_

_Of scarves _

_(In red and blue_

_And other hues)_

_You never do anything by halves._

_I love you more than I can say_

_I'll scream your name from the rooftops everyday!_

_Comfort me_

_Soothe my sorrow_

_Without we_

_There can be no tomorrow!_

_Tell me that you feel the same_

_And I shall lovingly whisper your name_

_With every breath_

_I ever take_

_Until death_

_Leaves one of us, grieving, alone in its wake."_

Merlin resisted the urge to simply vomit at Arthur's horrendous attempt at poetry.

Gaius raised _both_ of his eyebrows. "Oh, that is _so_ OOC!"


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Okay! Are you sitting comfortably? Good! Then let's begin...**

**I want to start with the usual: thanks. If you are reading this, you are awesome. If you have reviewed/favourited/alerted I like you. A lot.**

**The song about Lord Godfrey's daughter that appears later is entirely Vegetables' own. I take no credit whatsoever - if you like it, by all means, tell her so! Spread the love, people! Credit also goes to Vegetables for the mention of Gaius' developing a third eyebrow. I just thought it was funny.**

**Whilst I'm doling out credit... A big slice of credit pie goes to Nicicia, who suggested Arthur chasing Merlin round the chambers and breaking stuff.**

**Also... My laptop is kaputt atm, so I am currently coming to you from lots of other people's laptops. This means two things: 1) updates may not be as frequent (although, that probably won't be an issue), 2) it might take a while for me to get around to replying to reviews... but don't lose heart! I will! As soon as I can access my emails properly!**

**You'll see later on that I needed to find a name that wouldn't have existed at all in medieval England, and, you know, it's actually quite hard. I resorted to asking my mother. I thought I should share with you that, when I asked her if she knew anyone with a modern name****, she said, **_**Woody, he'd be very pleased to be in your fanfiction**_**. And I (like a muppet) said, **_**Woody?**_** And so she said, **_**Yeah, he would.**_** That's my mum for you… **

.

Now, you would think that three grown adults (and one scrawny Merlin) would be able to keep a lone, lovesick Prince Arthur from bursting through the door into the physician's chambers. Unfortunately, our author had, apparently, paid little attention in maths; for burst through the door he did.

At the sight of Arthur's loving gaze, Merlin squealed something so shockingly rude that the tips of Uther's ears turned red and Gaius would have raised a third eyebrow had he had one.

Arthur turned to Merlin, and seemed a little disappointed to find the object of his affections scurrying away from him. He also noted, with some embarrassment, that Merlin's eyes were, in fact, blue. Oops.

_Oh well._ He thought to himself, with an inward shrug. _I've done stupider things._

And with that, he charged after Merlin with renewed vigour.

Merlin was not quite so keen.

The prince chased the warlock around and around and around the cramped space; they jumped over a slightly baffled Alice; dodged around Uther (who had found himself in need of a 'sit down'); and just bowled the chuckling Gaius over; sending potion vials and healing recipes flying as they darted about.

"I cannot bare the separation any longer, Merlin!"

Merlin squeaked and hid under the nearest stool. "Stop following me!"

"Butt, Merlin; I am your true love! Prey, tell me, how I am to stop myself from following my heart?"

Gaius was now laughing uproariously at Arthur's stilted, misspelt, downright ridiculous speech.

Eventually Merlin's skipping skills proved fruitless, for Arthur, as a trained knight of Camelot, was probably bound to outwit him eventually. He wrestled the servant to the ground and was about to force their mouths together when there was a well-timed knock at the door.

Gaius took one look at the sheer panic on Merlin's face, wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes and went to answer it.

At the door there stood two people.

One of these two people was a perfectly ordinary-looking person. In fact, they were so ordinary-looking that they looked rather extraordinary. This man seemed identical to almost every other generic citizen of Camelot that had ever been seen. He was so painfully average, so blatantly normal, that it was hard not to stare at him. His hair was brown, his eyes were brown and his face was fairly boring. He had a bit of a beard, a slightly stupid expression, and he constantly looked as though he was almost about to say something unintelligent.

The other person was a girl so thoroughly beyond description that words literally cannot express how she looked. The people in the room could only gawk at her, not at all understanding why it was that she could be standing right in front of them, and yet they could have absolutely no idea what she looked like.

The girl smiled at their perplexed expressions, as though she was used to them (she probably was). "My name is Vegetables-will-have-their-revenge, only… without the hyphens," she swatted the annoying little dashes out of the air with her hand, as the others stared on, completely dumbfounded.

"That's an odd name," Uther eventually managed.

"No odder than Uther Pendragon." Nobody had anything to say to that. "You may call me Vegetables for short. I was wondering if anyone could help me… I seem to have misplaced my plotbunny, and I need it for a story I'm writing…"

At the mention of one of the blasted plotbunnies, Arthur sprang off Merlin, all thoughts of fondling laid aside for the minute, and he unsheathed his sword. Then, realising that that sounded horribly like an innuendo, he settled for simply pointing his finger at her. "You! You have unleashed this plague of rabbits upon Camelot! You shall pay with your life!"

"I'm sorry?"

"The rabbits! Are you responsible for the rabbits?"

"What rabbits?"

"THE RABBITS THAT HAVE TAKEN OVER MY CASTLE?"

"Excuse me, Arthur, but if you have been usurped by bunnies, I think that's more of a reflection of your leadership skills than anything else. I'm afraid I'm not responsible for the infestation, I'm looking for one plotbunny in particular: it's purple and has a glittery tail. Have any of you seen it anywhere?"

Gaius, who had been staring rather determinedly at Vegetables' companion throughout the interaction, suddenly turned to face the girl, "Is this an OC?" he asked, a look of wonder on his face.

"Yes. Not a very good one, I'm afraid."

"I've never seen a real one before…"

"I take him with me pretty much everywhere I go… He comes in useful. I call him Paul… Or sometimes Tristan. Occasionally I call him Woody, depending on how anachronistic I'm feeling… He's more of a background character; he's certainly not a protagonist…"

"That is not important. My dear, I cannot stress the scientific significance of this; I shall fetch the poking stick immediately…"

Gaius scuttled off into a rather large cupboard, and came back with a very long, bright orange rod that looked rather pointy. "Do you mind if I prod your companion, for purely scientific purposes… of course?"

Vegetables shrugged. "Be my guest. Just get him back to me eventually."

Gaius clapped his hands together gleefully, and gestured for Alice (who threw the dozing Uther a nervous look, before obliging) to follow him into Merlin's room, presumably to help him perform some tests on their new subject. Before closing the door he turned to Vegetables and said, "You should ask Gwen. She likes the rabbits."

"Oh, yeah!" Merlin piped up, helpfully, as he finally got up off the floor. "Gwen's got loads of the rabbits at her house! One of them is surely yours! And, if yours isn't there, then she'll probably at least have seen it…"

"Guinevere has been giving these vermin _house room_?" Arthur seemed to have entirely forgotten about his previous infatuation with Merlin: now he was just angry.

"Err…" Merlin flashed Arthur his goofiest, most adorable grin, shamelessly hoping some semblance of the feelings the prince had only just been professing might save him from having a heavy object thrown at his head.

"Ow! Arthur! That hurt!"

Arthur didn't seem to care particularly. "We shall go and find Guinevere…" he muttered. "We must confiscate these creatures at once… I have had enough of being made to look like an ignoramus by these fluffy rodents! They shall be made an example of!"

Uther grinned up at his son, who was fidgeting dementedly, and foaming a little at the mouth. "That's the spirit, son! Slaughter the innocent and defenceless!" He turned to Vegetables, and told her, proudly, "He's just like his father."

This was the point at which the author put their foot down. They were a nice person, and there was to be no bunny-slaughtering on their watch. As far as they were concerned, it was about time Prince Arthur Pratdragon learned a lesson about sensitivity…

Everybody was stunned into silence.

Arthur had become a girl.

Nobody had the courage to point it out to him.

Instead, they simply let him charge off to Gwen's, and begin his bunny-massacre. Arthur was her problem now…

Just as the furious clip-clopping of Arthur's high heels stomping along the corridor died down, there was a rather piercing scream from Merlin's bedroom, followed by a chorus of manic giggling.

Merlin rolled his eyes at Vegetables, who he had decided he quite liked, and actually wanted to talk to. "I guess I'd better go see what they're doing in there…"

Vegetables turned to Uther, who was now staring very intensely at his nose.

"I think what you and I need is a nice, cold tankard of Meade…"

Uther did not disagree.

**.**

_Matilda! 'Mighty in battle' indeeed!  
Matilda! You ask and she'll give all you neeeed! (And mooore!)_

With those stupid blonde curls and extravagant pearls,  
And with a brain as dirty as muck,  
She's done it with practically all of the earls,  
But now she's run out of luck!

Becaaaaause!

The moustache is growing, and growing some more,  
It'll soon pass her father's, and reach to the floor!  
And we'll all trip over it, and we'll be sooooore!  
Oh, the moustache is growing, and growing some more!

With those fluttering eyelashes, rosy red cheeks,  
And a smile that most men adore,  
They all think she's perfectly lovely untiiiil,  
She ruins the night with that snore!

Pluuuus!

The moustache is growing, and growing some more,  
It'll soon pass her father's, and reach to the floor!  
And we'll all trip over it, and we'll be sooooore!  
Oh, the moustache is growing, and growing some more!

Her mother is hideous, father a trout,  
And her cousins are cattle to boot!  
Her brother, though a knight, is a lazy old lout,  
But I couldn't give a cahoot!

Becaaaaause!

The moustache is growing, and growing some more,  
It'll soon pass her father's, and reach to the floor!  
And we'll all trip over it, and we'll be sooooore!  
Oh, the moustache is growing, and growing some more!

But no-one cares any for looks or a laugh,  
'Cos no-one looks twice at her face.  
As long as she'll come to 'yer bed or 'yer bath,  
You'll count it as winnin' the race!

Althooough!

The moustache is growing, and growing some more,  
It'll soon pass her father's, and reach to the floor!  
And we'll all trip over it, and we'll be sooooore!  
Oh, the moustache is growing, and growing some more!

The slurred, drunken singing spilled out of the tavern at a shockingly loud volume. The citizens of Camelot (who had never particularly liked Lord Godfrey or his daughter) did not mind overly much. They would have not complained if they had minded, since it was their sovereign making the racket, and he had recently developed a fondness for beheading those who spoke out of turn…

Alongside the King of Camelot were Gwaine (who always seemed to be involved in anything like this, largely owing to the fact that he practically lived in the tavern), Leon, Elyan, Lancelot and a peculiar-looking girl, who no-one knew, but who everyone had decided was rather funny (when they understood what she was talking about).

Lancelot, as usual, was being no fun at all. He was brooding in the corner, staring wistfully at Gwaine and over-analysing their relationship. When he wasn't asking anyone who would listen why it was that _some people_ would kiss a person and then pretend that nothing had ever happened between them; he was sitting in the corner, writing down all of the honourable, noble or otherwise knightly deeds he had performed that evening, in a little notebook that was covered in doodles of stars, hearts and flowers.

The drunken singing could be heard as clearly as anything in every single nook and cranny of Camelot; including Gwen's little house. Gwen was sitting on a dainty rocking chair, petting one of the various assorted rabbits, pondering why it was that no-one ever went out drinking with her (_she could be fun, honest!_), when a familiar-looking blonde girl tumbled in through her door, yelling at her.

"Guinevere! What do you think you are doing?"

"What do _you_ think _you_ are doing? Who are you?"

"What? Don't play games! I will not be distracted! These rabbits must go!"

That was apparently all the explanation Arthur intended to offer; she began scooping rabbits up under her arms, a look of mad determination fixed very solidly on her face.

"Arthur? Is that you?"

"No, Guinevere. It's _Mer_lin…" Arthur retorted, continuing to amass bunnies, becoming ever so slightly distracted by how cute and fluffy their little ears were…

"Arthur… I think I have to tell you something very important…"

"Can it not wait, Guinevere? I _am_ rather busy at the moment?"

"No, Arthur. No, I don't think it can wait."

Gwen stood, looking at the person who had, up until very recently, been the man she loved, with no idea of what to do next. So, instead of saying anything at all, she just fidgeted with her skirt.

"Well… go on then: spit it out!"

"Arthur… I… I don't mean to be rude, or… um… presumptuous… err… I mean, I don't see how it could have escaped your notice but, um, you're… well… err…"

Arthur looked at her expectantly.

"You're a girl!" Gwen blurted out, with all of her usual tactfulness.

She could see that Arthur was just about to scoff at her, but instead she looked down, and seemed mesmerised by her own chest. "What on earth…"

Arthur turned, horrified, back to Guinevere, and dropped all of the rabbits to the floor in shock.

**.**

Merlin shook his head in disbelief and shut the door to his room, closing out Alice, who was making a nice cup of tea for a shaken-up Paul. Merlin decided to put aside the fact that he had no idea what exactly this 'tea' was, and instead turned to Gaius, who was looking a little sheepish.

"We might have taken it a bit far with the poker…" the physician began to admit.

Merlin shook his head again. "Gaius, I really do not want to know the details. I actually wanted to ask you about something completely different."

"Oh. Of course…"

Gaius gestured for Merlin to sit next to him on the bed, and he did so. They were silent for a minute, as Merlin looked around the space suspiciously.

"Can she hear us?"

"Can who hear us, Merlin?"

"_She_! The author," he whispered, as quietly as he could to an elderly fellow whose hearing was not what it had once been.

"Yes, Merlin. She can hear everything. _Whether or not we whisper_."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

Merlin pondered the implications of this. "So… If I wanted to ask you how you managed to separate yourself from your body, in order to speak to Uther and me, you couldn't say? Because then she'd know too?"

"Precisely, Merlin. So don't ask."

Merlin nodded conspiratorially, and sat, chewing the insides of his cheeks, listening to the distant wailing coming from Camelot's tavern.

**.**

"Does my bum look big in this?"

"Err..." Gwen had absolutely no idea how to answer that question. The honest answer was: _Yes, Arthur. Your rear end looks even larger than your ego in that dress._ Gwen didn't say that, though. She just smiled uselessly, as Arthur got more and more exasperated.

The truth was that Arthur really did not make a very attractive girl. She was too bulky and masculine; her golden hair was quite nice and curly, her blue eyes were quite pretty and sparkly, but, other than that, she really did just look like an oddly-shaped man in a frock.

Arthur twisted and turned every which way in front of the mirror, and couldn't seem to get any satisfaction whatsoever out of her reflection. "Merlin was a much prettier girl than I am…" she told Gwen mournfully, slumping down on to the bed.

Under any other circumstances, Guinevere would not have allowed the Prince of Camelot to sit on her bed. Especially not when she was all alone in her house. People would start talking…

However, since the Prince of Camelot was, currently, the Princess of Camelot, Gwen supposed it probably couldn't do that much harm.

So she sat down next to her.

Arthur picked up a passing bunny, and nestled it closely into her chest.

"I'm sorry I tried to kill all of your rabbits…" Arthur began, tears starting to trickle down her cheeks.

Gwen patted her shoulder consolingly. "That's alright, Arthur… I'm sure you didn't mean it… Cuddles knows that too…" she told her, tapping the rabbit - 'Cuddles' – on the nose.

Arthur sniffed, and nodded her head. "Hmm… I hope I wouldn't have gone through with it… I can't imagine really wanting to hurt them…"

As they sat quietly, listening to the gentle humming of a contented rabbit, and slowly inching closer together, an unfamiliar noise began in the background. It was a strange kind of music; not like anything they had ever heard before, and it drowned out all other noise in Camelot.

_She's not with you now, you think too much about her._

"Did you say something?"

"No."

_Picking__ up new questions, you don't know what you don't know._

"Did _you_ say something?"

"No."

_Words you__'ve never said, and the quiet doubts about you, will gather in her head._

"Are you singing?"

"No, Arthur, I am not singing."

_So, tell her what she wants to know, she'll find out anyway._

"Can you hear that noise?"

"Yes."

"Where's it coming from?"

_Oh, tell her what she wants to know, she'll find out._

"I don't know… There was singing coming from the tavern earlier… but that does not sound like the singing of drunken men…"

_Oh, tell her what she wants to know, she'll find out anyway._

"Indeed not."

_Tell her. Tell her. _

"Arthur… What is going on?"

"I'm not sure, but… but it feels a little bit like before… With Merlin…"

"I don't understand?"

_When you can't find her that's when she's gone looking for you._

"I think we're in one of those slash things."

"But… but…"

"We're both girls now…"

_She gives you too much room, and it makes you feel alone._

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed."

"Oh, dear."

_You won't let go, but you won't say you love her._

"I'm not complaining… It could be worse, you could have to kiss _Mer_lin... Imagine that…"

_She'll see it in your eyes, she'll know. _

Under ordinary circumstances, it would have occurred to Gwen that now was not, perhaps, the best time to point out that she did not need to imagine what it would be like to kiss Merlin, because she'd already done it. Unfortunately, the rules of the strange slash-Arwen world they now inhabited required her to mention anything that could possibly make Arthur jealous at every available opportunity.

"Kissing Merlin is not so bad…"

"What would you know about kissing Merlin, Guinevere?"

The silence that followed answered Arthur's question for her. If Arthur had been himself (and not herself) he would probably have thrown some kind of jealous rage, and stormed about, requiring Gwen to calm him down.

Instead, she just started sniffling.

_So, tell her what she wants to know, she'll find out anyway._

"Now I understand why Merlin was crying all the time… It's hard being a girl!"

Gwen nodded. "Yes. It is."

_Oh, tell her what she wants to know, she'll find out._

Eventually Gwen asked Arthur, "What about the singing, what's that about?"

Arthur shook her head, "I'm not sure… We ought to ask Gaius…"

Neither of them looked inclined to get up and do that, though. They simply sat, quietly and companionably.

_Oh, tell her what she wants to know, she'll find out anyway._

And then, all of a sudden, the foundations of the house shook, a very little bit, and Gwen turned to find an unquestionably male Arthur sitting next to her, cuddling a bunny.

It was certainly no longer appropriate for them to be sitting together on her bed.

_Tell her. Tell her. Tell her._

And then the music cut out rather abruptly, and Arthur and Gwen could have sworn they could hear the sounds of someone cursing in the distance.

Gwen caught a piece of parchment that had flapped down from nowhere in particular, and Arthur gestured for her to hand it to him.

"It's an author's note," he explained. "It says, _Sorry, guys! Accidentally uploaded the wrong chapter there... That's from an Arthur/Gwen fic I'm trying out later... Not my usual ship, but I figured I'd give it a go. I don't think it worked. The song was a bit random. Sorry for any confusion caused... _What does this mean?" Arthur screwed the note up in frustration and tossed it into one of the house's dark corners.

**.**

Gaius chuckled. "That, my boy, sounds like a songfic… Not my thing, to be honest with you…" he laughed again, and helped Arthur clean the last of the rouge off his cheeks.

He paused to admire his handiwork, and heard the sound of approaching drunken knights stumbling down the corridor. There was a muffled chorus of

"_But no-one cares any for looks or a laugh,  
'Cos no-one looks twice at her face.  
As long as she'll come to 'yer bed or 'yer bath,  
You'll count it as winnin' the race!"  
_But the singsong was quickly drowned out by childish giggling.

All of a sudden, Elyan popped his head around the door and managed to slur, "Ah, helloooo your majesssstyy, and Gaaaiiussss…" before Leon ran into the back of him, and they both landed in the doorway, laughing at nothing in particular._  
_

Staggering along behind them was Gwaine, who, with a cry of "Matilda! Mighty in battle indeed!" launched himself on top of the writhing pile of giggling knight.

Arthur watched, dismayed, as a trail of winged rabbits gave the knot of knights rolling around in the corridor a wide berth.

"What is this Kingdom coming to?" he asked himself, with a shake of the head.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Hello there! Thank you (as always) to YOU. That's right: you. Right there. I am looking at you. And thanking you. Directly. Because you're awesome. I know this because you have got to chapter 8 of this nonsense, and haven't thrown anything at my head (unlike some people *cough* Arthur *cough*)... So thank you. Especially if you have reviewed... You reviewers are so awesome, I don't even have the right to talk to you... **

**Also... I owe the phrase, "all of its protagonists are having their sexual orientation skewed" to Kitty O, who left a very funny review 'from Gaius'. Read my reviews... it's right there... **

**.**

When Vegetables eventually came round, she was a little surprised: she hadn't realised just how intoxicated it was possible to get on imaginary alcohol. Scratching at her pulsing head, she squinted, and turned to see Uther amid a colossal pile of pastel coloured bunnies.

"Uuuutthhhheeerrrrr? Wh-what arrre yooouuu dooooiiiing?" she drawled, wiping the long river of dribble from her neck.

Uther threw her a glance that immediately made it clear he was a few definitions short of a dictionary; his eyes were wide and glassy, his lips were moving of their own accord and he appeared to be both terrified and amused at the same time. "I like the bunnies…" he murmured to himself, whilst rubbing the stomach of a rabbit in his lap as several others rolled in circles all around him. "And the bunnies like me…"

Vegetables closed her eyes as Uther lay down on his back and the bunnies enveloped him, drowning out his giggles.

**.**

Elyan awoke to the strong and familiar scent of Gwen's special hangover cure.

"Mmm…" he mumbled, trying to summon up some enthusiasm for the sewage-coloured sludge sitting in a giant brown pot in front of him. "Wow, Gwen. That smells… Uh…"

"Don't bother," Gwaine quickly put him out his misery, pinching Elyan's nose and tipping the foul gunge down his throat, ignoring the knight's shuddering. "I already told her it tastes awful. Does the trick, though."

Elyan nodded, wiping his watering eyes with the back of his hand. "Aha…"

At that moment, Gwen appeared from the back of the house, with - to their horror - another batch of the stuff that looked suspiciously like pig faeces.

Elyan tried to smile.

"Don't bother," Gwen echoed Gwaine. "I got the message that no one likes it when Leon spat his in my face." She turned to scowl a little at said knight who was skulking bashfully in the corner. "It's not supposed to taste nice; it's supposed to make you sober," she reminded them.

Lancelot observed them all from his perch on the bench, with a slightly superior air; he, after all, had managed to control himself last night, he did not need 'sobering up'. The knight looked between Gwen and Gwaine, who appeared to be sharing some sort of private joke, and he had to turn his face away: he was too ashamed. He had kissed both of them! Imagine, kissing _more than one person_, like a common hussy. If only they knew what a rogue he truly was…

The surge of guilt in Lancelot's stomach as he realised he loved both of these people was unbearable, if he didn't do something noble soon, to negate it, he just wouldn't be able to cope.

"Gwen… Gwaine… I am ashamed of myself," he told them, coming to his feet abruptly. "I have led both of you on, and I can but be honest: my feelings for both of you are strong. I cannot make my decision, and I cannot justify keeping either of you in suspense. I take my leave of you." With that, Lancelot offered them a low bow, and processed solemnly and thoughtfully out of the cottage.

There was a pause.

"What was that all about?" Leon asked, eventually.

"Oh hell, I don't know…" Gwaine muttered, scratching his beard and belching.

Gwen frowned, "Should someone not go after him?"

"Nah," Gwaine dismissed the girlish notion with a wave of the hand. "He'll be back in a bit. That's just how he deals with things; he makes a speech, disappears for a while, then he pops back up when it's least convenient. I think we should just leave him to it…"

No one seemed inclined to disagree.

"Who wants some more of _Gwen's special hangover cure_?"

The groan in response was unanimous.

**.**

"Where is he Gaius?"

"Sire, I…"

"Gaius… I swear; if you are hiding Merlin in another barrel I will have your head! Physician or not!"

"Sire, please, I implore you… Do not go in there…"

Arthur's eyebrow twitched. "Aha! That's where he is! I knew it!"

"Sire… please… this is a matter of extreme delicacy…"

But Arthur had already swung the bathroom door open to reveal Merlin crouched over the toilet, vomiting rainbows.

"What the…"

Merlin turned to Arthur, tears streaming down his face, opened his mouth to speak, and instead burped a shimmering bubble.

Arthur shut the door again.

"Gaius…"

"I can explain…"

**.**

"PREGNANT?"

"Yes, Sire."

"You think that my _male_ manservant is PREGNANT?"

"Yes, Sire."

There was an awkward pause. "Oh no… There's more, isn't there? Something worse?"

"Yes, Sire."

Arthur widened his eyes expectantly. "And that something more would be…?"

"It's yours, Sire."

"WHAT?"

"Please! I must ask you to stop shouting! Merlin is in an incredibly fragile state, and I fear you may damage his head."

"I'll damage more than his head if he's not careful! Gaius, this isn't possible!"

"How so, Sire?"

"Merlin and I haven't… you know…" Arthur shuddered. "And we don't intend to! I was saving _that_ for someone…"

"Someone 'special', Sire?"

"Yes! Special and preferably female! What's wrong with that?"

Gaius held back a snigger, "Nothing at all, Sire. I do not think that this is the result of something natural… or magical…" he added, anticipating Arthur's next turn of mind.

Arthur looked blank. "Could there be any other explanation?"

Gaius resisted the temptation to smack the back of Arthur's head in an attempt to knock some sense into him. "Fanfiction! Boy! Where have you been for the past week?"

Realisation slowly dawned on Arthur. "The author is responsible for this…"

Gaius rolled his eyes, shut the door in Arthur's face and went off to go and console Merlin: he really didn't have the patience for Arthur's dim-wittedness today.

The elderly physician found Merlin, huddled in a corner, cradling his chest.

"My nipples are sore…" he informed Gaius in a trembling voice, before wiping a trail of pink, sparkling liquid from his nose.

**.**

Gwaine, Elyan and Leon had eventually been turfed out of the house by Gwen, with a list of groceries and the instruction to _"Go and do something useful!"_ And so they had embarked on a trek around Camelot's market and were now trying to ascertain whether or not various fruits would meet Gwen's impeccably high standards (in spite of knowing nothing whatsoever about fruit) by squeezing them, sniffing them and - in Gwaine's case - eating them.

"You can't do that, Gwaine!" Leon hissed at him, elbowing him in the side, causing the pile of apples and plums he had stuffed up his sleeves to tumble to the floor with a satisfying squelch.

"Arrgh… Now I have to start again…" the knight muttered, beginning to stuff grapes up his nostrils.

"It's stealing!" Leon told him, looking shocked. "A Knight of Camelot does not steal!"

"Yeah?" Gwaine asked whilst curiously examining a strawberry. "Well I'm fairly confident that a Knight of Camelot doesn't get up on tables, fasten his cape about his head and shimmy either. But that didn't stop you last night…"

Leon turned a shade of red rather similar to that of the strawberry Gwaine was twiddling in between his fingers, and, embarrassed, began a thorough examination of his boots (he concluded that they were, in fact, boots).

Gwaine frowned, and thrust the strawberry under Leon's nose. "What is this?"

"That's a strawberry, Gwaine."

"A what?"

"A strawberry."

Gwaine brought the peculiar looking fruit close to his lips and licked it. "Hmm… When did these arrive? I've never seen one before?"

"Err…" Leon looked thoughtful. "Strawberries: introduced to Britain in the 16th Century, I believe."

"What's 'Britain'?"

Leon shrugged. "Dunno. They've been in Camelot for ages… Uther's always hauling them out at feasts… Come to think of it; I wonder where he's getting them from…"

Gwaine had clearly lost interest. He shoved the berry in his mouth, and grinned. "Tastes alright for something that doesn't exist. I've certainly put worse things in my mouth, if you know what I mean…"

Leon grimaced. If he did know what Gwaine meant, he certainly didn't want to dwell on it…

Elyan popped up behind them, an irritatingly chipper grin on his face. "Having fun?"

"Oh, yeah…" Gwaine announced sarcastically, with a dramatic wave of the hand. "Nothing I like more than spending hours trawling through the market…"

"_Stealing fruit_," Leon added under his breath.

Unfortunately their witticisms were lost on Elyan, who simply offered them a moronic smile, and a handful of lumpy pears.

Chuckling away at Gwaine's unsubtle attempts to eat the produce without paying; they did not notice a rather sullen Sir Percival sneak up on them until it was far too late to make a quick getaway. It was his burly cough from right behind them that finally drew their attention.

"Hello, gentleman," he began, coldly.

They gulped. Percy was a nice guy; but he was big. Nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of him and, apparently, they had…

"I hear you - and Lancelot - went out last night. Did you have a nice time?" he pronounced the words as if they were knives slicing through his cheeks.

They all just about managed to nod.

"In fact… As I understand it… All of the knights were out with you last night…"

_Ah_, they were beginning to see where this was going.

"All of the knights… except for…"

Elyan gulped. "Except for… you, Percy?"

Percy sneered, and sniffed sharply. "Don't call me Percy! Any of you!" He held up a hand to silence their apologies, and placed the other hand on his leaning hip. "I don't want to hear it! I can't believe even _Lancelot_ went without me! It feels like you're all part of this exclusive club, and I'm just not involved. What is it? Do you not like me? Is it my size? Are you embarrassed to be seen out with me?"

They tried to speak but…

"Don't answer that!" he wiped a tear from his eye. "I just can't deal with any of this now! I'm going to go and train with Arthur! _At least he likes me…_" Percy gave them a final icy glare, and flounced off.

The three knights stood, in absolute silence.

Gwaine began to munch on a peach.

In the distance, they could hear a muffled, _"Where have all me apples gone?"_

"Time to go lads…" Gwaine muttered to the other two, and they strolled off, talking loudly about the latest sword-fighting techniques, trying to look as innocent as possible, leaving a trail of snot-covered grapes behind them.

**.**

Eventually, after lots of potent mood enhancers and much coaxing, Gaius managed to persuade Merlin that a little bit of fresh air would do him no end of good.

Merlin had snuffled, tightened the neckerchief about his neck, and cooed a little at his belly.

Gaius wasn't certain how to respond to that, so he pretended that it hadn't happened.

Upon making his exit and flinging the door to the physician's chambers open rather dramatically, Merlin was confronted by Arthur, who had apparently been standing there, puzzling everything out, since Gaius had got fed up with him half an hour ago.

"So…" Arthur eventually reasoned, looking at Merlin for confirmation. "We're in one of these fanfictions right now?"

"Oh! For the love of Camelot!" Merlin exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Have you spent half an hour working that out?"

Arthur seemed a little insulted. "I'm going to forgive you for that, Merlin… Since you're probably a little hormonal…"

"And whose fault is that?" Merlin demanded, rather bleary-eyed all of a sudden.

"Um… The author's…?"

"No! Arthur! No! It's _your_ fault! You never take responsibility for your own actions..." he huffed, preparing to storm off dramatically and go and find a secluded corner to weep in.

"Now hold on just a minute… This isn't my fault, _Mer_lin… I never asked for any of this to happen… I never wanted any of this to happen…"

Merlin gasped, and slapped Arthur across the face, leaving a nasty red handprint sizzling on the prince's skin. "How dare you? Is that all our relationship means to you?"

"Merlin! We don't have a relationship!"

"That is so like you, Arthur! You chauvinistic pig! I suppose I was nothing more than a way to _warm your bed_?"

"What _are _you talking about? Of course you warm my bed… You're my servant… That's one of your duties…" Realisation crept up behind Arthur, tapped him on the shoulder, and introduced itself. "Oh. Oh… Ew. That's a stupid euphemism…"

"Can we please not turn this into a discussion about the quality of my euphemisms? You're always so eager to change the topic!"

"For your information, _Mer_lin, nobody has 'warmed my bed'. And nobody shall."

"What?"

"You heard me. I'm saving myself. For someone special. Why does everyone assume that just because I'm a prince I sleep around?"

"No-one mentioned anything about your sleeping patterns, Arthur…"

"I do not know who is spreading these vicious rumours about my virtue… But when I find them…"

Merlin snorted. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"I am perfectly serious! Why does everybody find the idea of my wanting to wait for the right person so laughable? It's not as if you've… Have you?"

Merlin shrugged, and grinned sheepishly at the floor.

"Who?" Arthur demanded, jealousy that didn't really belong to him swirling around inside his stomach.

"Freya…" Merlin muttered, staring dreamily down at his feet.

"Freya…? The winged-panther-girl? Merlin! That's practically bestiality! You zoophile!"

Merlin didn't look inclined to apologise.

They stood in silence for a little while, ignoring the fact that, throughout their conversation, Merlin had been breaking chocolate-flavoured wind, and so the corridor was now filled with the peculiar stench.

"Anyway…" Merlin grumbled, rubbing at his stomach. "Whether or not you take responsibility for it… This baby is yours too."

"How is that even possible?"

"I don't know. Gaius said it was part of an obscure genre known as' mpreg'. Doesn't mean anything to me…" Merlin sighed, as little rainbow-coloured tears leaked out of his eyes.

"Well… This is certainly no ordinary pregnancy… No offence, but your bodily functions are pretty weird…"

"Don't you hate it when people say 'no offence but' and then proceed to tell you something offensive?"

"Err…"

Merlin didn't wait for Arthur to respond. "Gaius thinks it's because I have magic - apparently this is what the author thinks a magical male pregnancy is like. I can't really correct them…"

Arthur drew back in horror, and pointed the nearest piece of weaponry (a slightly girly looking plate of fruit) at Merlin. "You have magic?"

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"I asked if you have magic!"

"If _you_ have magic?"

"No; if _you_ have magic!"

"If _I _have magic?"

"Yes."

"No."

"What? Merlin: DO YOU HAVE MAGIC?"

"I don't know, _do_ _you_?"

"No!"

"Yes?"

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"No."

"Yes."

"Sorcerer!" Merlin gasped, pointing at Arthur, his face a mask of horror. "You have magic!"

"No!"

"But you just admitted to it, and you said yourself that you never get anything wrong…"

Arthur fell onto his knees. "Please! Don't tell Uther: I beg of you!"

Merlin smiled, patted him on the head and walked away very calmly, resisting the urge to laugh.

"Don't worry…" he said to his stomach, tickling it a little. "We're too quick for him…"

Unfortunately, this entire scene had been witnessed by Paul, the OC; who was now hiding in an alcove, watching as Arthur knelt on the floor, the phrase, _'did that really just happen?'_ plastered across his face, and Merlin waddled off down the corridor, talking to his own abdomen.

Paul decided it was about time he reported back to Vegetables.

**.**

After much searching (and a very strange conversation with three knights with oddly lumpy bodies, who looked and smelled like they had fruit stuffed down their trousers) Paul eventually found Vegetables at Camelot's tavern, in the somewhat questionable company of one King Uther and an awful lot of bunnies.

"Hey Paul!" she slurred, offering him a high five. "Why are you bald?"

"Gaius' experiments had some unfortunate consequences…"

She shrugged. "I think it makes your scalp look shiny."

"Err… Thanks?"

"No problem."

"Are any of these the plotbunny we came here looking for?"

"Sadly, no. I haven't a clue where the stupid thing has gone… And I'm annoyed… peskychesk is gonna jump right down my throat if I can't find it… How will we finish our story?"

Paul shrugged. "Why are all these plotbunnies here, anyway?"

"I don't know… There's something really weird going on."

"You're telling me. I just witnessed the _weirdest_ revealfic _ever_."

"Do explain."

"I can't. It was one of those things you really had to see… But I can tell you that whoever is writing the story has got an unusual hold on Camelot… I've never been in anything like this before… It's completely insane…"

"You're right. We ought to do something about this… Camelot is in mortal danger…"

"I wouldn't say 'mortal danger'; it's just that all of its protagonists are having their sexual orientation skewed…"

Vegetables huffed. "I was only trying to be dramatic…"

"Sorry."

"That's alright. You're only an extra, after all…" she ruffled what would have been his hair fondly. "I think we're going to have to call in our contacts at _The League_..."

"Are you sure? That's pretty drastic…"

Behind them, Uther rose to his feet, and having fashioned a skirt from plotbunnies, began to skip merrily around the tavern, singing to himself.

Vegetables narrowed her eyes. "Oh… I'm sure."

**.**

Gaius held the Clearblue pregnancy test stick up to the sunlight.

"Gaius…" Merlin whined from the corner.

"Yes, Merlin?"

"Why did I have to wee on that thing?"

"To ascertain whether or not you are, in fact, pregnant, my boy."

"How can my urinating on _that thing_ tell us that?"

"Science, dear boy. Now… do be quiet…"

Merlin did not seem to want to oblige. "I've never seen anything like it before; what's it made of?" he asked, resisting the urge to flick it.

"Plastic."

"Oh." That raised more questions than it answered. "Where did you get it from?"

"eBay. Will you please hush?"

They waited in silence, staring in weird fascination at a plastic stick.

Eventually, Gaius let out a sigh of relief. "Hard as this may be to believe, Merlin: you are not pregnant."

"What?"

"Perhaps our author has merely created the appearance of a pregnancy…? Although I cannot fathom why…"

Bu they were not left with much time to process this, as just then there was a ping from behind them, and Gaius scurried eagerly away to his laptop, delighted giggling quickly following.

"What is it?"

"Apparently my uncle, a wealthy Nigerian, has just passed away… I merely need to give away some personal details and I shall become richer than even Uther himself!"

Gaius' fingers skimmed the laptop in the way that only a person's practised in the art of internet surfing can, but his final click was swiftly followed by a horrible crunching noise and some nasty flashing lights.

"Gaius… What's going on?"

"I… I have no idea…" Gaius scrutinised the screen. "It appears my laptop is unwell… It seems to have contracted some kind of _virus_..."

Gaius typed frantically, trying to reverse the effects of the infection currently eating its way through his entire hard drive, and was met by a notification flashing up on the screen to tell him that he had successfully sent the message on to everyone in his contacts list.

"What message…?" Gaius murmured to himself, as the light in his laptop flickered and died.

There was a deafening screech in the distance, as the author cursed the day Gaius had been born.

"Oh no…"

"Gaius… I really don't understand…"

"I've lost everything, Merlin. My whole life was on that machine, and now it's gone."

"That's not true, Gaius. You have me, and you have Alice. Life will go on, I promise. It might seem impossible now, but things will get better…"

Gaius nodded, blinking back tears. "That's not the worst part, Merlin: I've sent the virus to the author!"

"What?"

"Oh Merlin… I fear that Camelot will not be able to withstand the revenge she will seek…"


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello! :) Firstly, I meant to thank CoffeeJunkie33 last chapter, to whom full credit for Uther frolicking with bunnies ought to go to... CJ33 also claims full credit for Gaius' having an iPod in this chapter, which I just thought was a little spark of genius! The song that appears later in the chapter is not mine, it belongs to Avenue Q. I'm not intending to infringe on copyright, merely to LOL. While I'm at it, Cee Lo Green owns Forget You (FU) and that song I used in the mocksongfic a couple of chapters ago was Tell Her What She Wants To Know, by Sam Phillips... So there. I didn't write any of them. Just in case you were under the (bizarre) impression that I am an undiscovered songstress: I'm not. Oh, and the inspiration to use the Avenue Q song (you'll understand when you've read the chapter) came from a very funny song-mockfic called OHMYGODIMONFIRE by Autumne255, which you should check out :)**

**Also, if you were wondering, the review left from "Broseph" last chapter was not from some random crazy person. It was from my best friend, who actually encourages me to spend my time writing fanfiction (so you can blame/thank "Broseph"). Mpreg was her idea... :) As for the "Bronito" she mentions... That's a PJ (private joke, not pyjama). To you, Bromulus: I have nothing to say except _Bromeo, oh Bromeo, where for art thou Bromeo?_ Don't worry if you don't understand (we tend to have that effect on people)... She'll get it. **

**On the subject of best friends, another one of me dearest mateys left me a review a while ago: hettiebundle. She actually created an enitre account _just_ to review my story (because I hadn't learnt how to enable anonymous reviews then), which I thought was adorable. :) She calls me 'Ken' in it... yeah, that's another private joke that I'm not going in to now... Suffice it to say that 'Ken' is not, in fact, my name... Just in case you were wondering...**

**And to YOU! Person who is reading this, and has given up trying to understand what I'm talking about! Thank you! Argh! I love you! Just keep reading! *please* Reviews are like hugs, and hugs are like therapy for the soul...**

**.**

Arthur snatched the author's note as it wafted through the breezes, concern etched across his features as he wondered what this mad girl could possibly have in store for them next.

Merlin stood, hands folded across his chest, waiting for Arthur to say something.

Arthur didn't say anything.

"Well?"

Arthur frowned at Merlin, as though he had forgotten his manservant was there (to be honest, Merlin wasn't particularly surprised). "Oh… It says: _Sorry about this chapter guys, the punctuation's a bit odd. SOMEBODY sent me a stupid virus, so now my laptop's gone AWOL and keeps posting things that I haven't written… Don't worry, though. I've got the person who did this to me back…_" Arthur gulped. "I'm not sure what most of that meant… But I gathered that she has done something to Gaius…"

"I hope he's okay…" Merlin muttered, not waiting for Arthur to reply, instead bolting off in the direction of the physician's chambers.

When he got there, he nearly ran straight into a tearful Gwen, who was in the process of storming out.

"Are you alright?" he asked, in a tone of voice that suggested he didn't really want to know, and was just asking out of politeness.

"No! No - I most certainly am not!" Gwen waited for Merlin to ask her what was wrong; when he didn't she launched into retelling her woes regardless. "That _man_…!"

"Gaius?"

"_Gaius_! He called me a… a… a…" Gwen's voice trembled as she struggled to spit the vile word out. "A proxy! Of all the nasty things to say… He told me that I'm nothing more than a hollow character for girls to insert themselves into and live out their Cinderella fantasies!"

"Oh, Gwen… That's just not true… I'm sure he didn't mean it…"

"He sure sounded like he meant it! And do you know what he said next?"

"Err… no…"

"He said that he didn't think that there would have been any coloured people in Camelot!"

"Um…"

"I gave him a right piece of my mind then! I told him that, actually, recent archaeological evidence has indicated that not only were there people of mixed race in Medieval England, but that some mixed race women were actually members of the nobility! That shut him up…"

"What's _archaeological evidence_...?"

"I don't know, Merlin!"

Merlin resisted the urge to point out that the fact that someone else was apparently speaking through Gwen kind of confirmed her being a proxy, and instead just smiled uselessly.

Gwen huffed. "I don't care if he's upset, and I don't care if I'm supposed to be the nice, selfless one… I've had it with this… I don't have to put up with being spoken to like that. I'm going to be Queen one day, you know?"

As a matter of fact, Merlin did know this (he ignored the angry kicking of the non-existent baby in his stomach at the thought of someone else marrying 'Daddy') but decided he was going to continue saying nothing, since that plan of action seemed to be going well for him so far.

Gwen eventually got sick of trying to extract empathy from someone who seemed absolutely determined to say nothing useful, and went off in search of Elyan.

Taking a deep breath, trying to prepare himself mentally for whatever brutal emotional attack Gaius might launch on him, Merlin cautiously stepped across the threshold.

He couldn't see Gaius anywhere, but he could feel the old man's steely glare fixed firmly on his face.

"Hi Gaius…"

Silence.

"How are you?"

A painfully long pause and then: "Terrible."

Merlin edged a little nearer to the corner Gaius' voice seemed to be coming from. "What's wrong?"

"Don't come any closer! I don't want people seeing me like this…"

Frozen awkwardly on the spot, Merlin tried to think of a way of easing the tension. The only thing he could think of to comment on was the weather. "It's suddenly started raining a lot in Camelot… hey! That rhymes! I'm a poet and I don't know it…"

Gaius mumbled something derogatory from the corner.

Merlin drummed his fingers on the surface of the table, and watched the little droplets of precipitation hitting the window pane. He really couldn't think of anything else to talk about, so he tried again, "What's with all the rain?"

"It's pathetic fallacy."

Merlin said nothing.

"Because I'm miserable."

"And why would that be, Gaius?"

With a low growl, Gaius stomped forward from the corner, and into the light, revealing his face to Merlin. "This is why I'm miserable, Merlin!"

"Gaius? Is that you…?"

"Of course it's me!"

"But… but… where are your eyebrows?"

At this, Gaius broke into fresh peals of sobs, and thunder began to rumble ominously in the distance.

"I don't know! One minute they were there; the next… Poof! Like magic!"

Merlin opened his mouth to say something consoling, but, at the very mention of magic, Uther Pendragon's ears had pricked up, and he had run all the way from the council chambers (where he had been trying to draw a picture of Geoffrey of Monmouth in a gorilla suit, with no real success) to find the source of the sorcery.

"Did somebody say _magic_?"

"Yes Uther… but I was merely using it as a simile…"

Uther wagged a finger of warning at Gaius. "Be careful Gaius. That's your second simile this month. Remember the rule?"

"Yes, Sire; three strikes and you're out."

"And don't you forget it!"

And then, just like that, Uther was gone again.

Merlin turned back to Gaius, resisting the urge to laugh. "You look like Whoopi Goldberg…"

At this Gaius howled, lightning streaking across the daytime sky behind them (a very fearsome thing to behold) and the physician stormed moodily off into Merlin's room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Merlin gulped.

Things were certainly getting interesting in Camelot…

As he walked back down the halls to Arthur's room (having decided Gaius probably needed some time alone to 'cool off'), Merlin tried to get his head around everything that was going on, whilst rubbing at his slightly protruding belly.

Upon trundling through the corridor by the kitchens, Merlin was interrogated by a passing question mark.

_How peculiar…_

**.**

Ever since the virus had taken hold of the author's laptop; its effects had been very much felt in Camelot. Errant punctuation was running rampant. Rogue commas lurked in the alcoves, causing passers-by to trip over their tails; quotation marks kept popping up in people's heads, making them look as though they were about to speak, and then leaving them with no idea as to what they were going to say; and the semi-colons, who seemed to have nothing better to do, were amassing themselves in large gangs like bored teenagers and intimidating the citizens. It was all very odd.

According to Alice - who had been attending to the sick for the duration of Gaius' incapacitation - it was the exclamation marks that were the worst. They just jumped right out of nowhere, and were giving people heart attacks.

"Something has to be done about this punctuational menace!" Arthur bellowed at his knights, his face turning a strange purple colour.

"Is 'punctuational' a word?" Leon asked Gwaine, out of the corner of his mouth.

"No. I don't suggest you tell Arthur that, though…"

Merlin tried to sneak in surreptitiously, but instead shut the door behind him with a loud bang and tripped up over his own feet.

The knights all winced in unison; waiting for Arthur to begin berating his manservant, but nothing came. Arthur simply nodded at Merlin, who proceeded to lurk in his usual corner.

"Percy: you must reign in the parentheses… Leon: I want you to begin herding the asterisks… Gwaine: you're in charge of the diphthongs…"

"Alright!" Gwaine turned to demand a high-five (something he had learnt from his new friend Vegetables) from one of his fellow knights. "What's a diphthong?"

"Elyan… Where's Elyan?"

"I think he's talking to Gwen," one of the generic, nameless knights, who never seem to be in short supply in spite of their spectacular ability to die, said.

"Well… Go and get him! He can catch up on the girly gossip later! What about Lancelot?"

"Oh, he's gone… Sire…"

"Gone _where_?"

"We don't know. It's a character defect; it's part of being moody and unpredictable."

Arthur's face purpled a little more.

Merlin recognised this as a sign that he was probably about to challenge somebody to a fight to the death, and began to usher the knights out.

Arthur sighed, as his face became a slightly more normal red colour, and he sank down into his cushy thrown. "I am not equipped to handle this…"

Merlin cleaned out his ear with his finger, seemed mildly surprised to find the wax was actually bubble bath, and then sat down on the floor in front of Arthur. "I'm sure that's not true, Sire…"

"Come on, Merlin. Get up; you really ought not to be sitting on the floor in your condition."

And that was when Merlin remembered: he had forgotten to tell Arthur. That explained why the prince had been so nice to him of late… No boots had been thrown at him, he'd gone insult-free for a full twenty-four hours and (come to think of it) he hadn't been given any mindless, repetitive chores in a while.

Merlin fully intended to inform Arthur that he wasn't actually pregnant, he simply appeared to be, but what came out instead was, "It's not too bad… Once you get used to the morning sickness."

"I am sorry Merlin, what you said before was right; I do need to accept responsibility for my actions. So I'm starting with you. We shall name him as the heir to Camelot's thrown, as is right and proper."

"What? How do you know it's going to be a boy?"

"All of the Pendragon firstborns are boys… As for a name…"

"What if I don't want our son to become King of Camelot?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me: what if I want him to become a… a… blacksmith?"

"A _blacksmith_?"

"Yeah, or a servant, _like his father_…"

"Just a minute, Merlin! There are two fathers involved here, and I will not have you rejecting my family's legacy in favour of mucking out stables and wearing stupid neckerchiefs!"

"My neckerchiefs are _not_ stupid…"

"That's highly debatable." Arthur held up a hand to silence Merlin's defence of his fashion sense. "I think that we should return to our original topic: names."

"Well… I was thinking something classical, like Gaius. I'm sure Gaius would love to know we're naming our son after him… It might be just the pick-me-up he needs right now…"

"Enough of this nonsense. I am not naming my firstborn son Gaius. I have a selection of appropriate names, you may choose from the following: Orther, Ether or Ither."

"That's just your name with a different vowel on the front of it."

"And what, might I ask, is wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that is that it's stupid. That's what's wrong with it."

"How dare you? It worked perfectly well for my father!"

"And your father is certainly an excellent role model…"

"He most certainly is!"

Unfortunately for Arthur, Uther chose that very moment to skip past the door in a glittering purple dress, squealing, in a bizarre falsetto, that he was going to be "the prettiest girl at the ball!"

Merlin grinned. "You were saying?"

"Don't you have somewhere else to be, _Mer_lin?"

**.**

Eventually Merlin managed to convince himself that it was about time he went to go and check on Gaius.

Gaius did not see what Merlin found so funny about the eyebrows he had tried to draw on in felt tip.

Merlin's protests, however reasonable - "I'm sorry I laughed Gaius, but, really… they're orange!" - and however sincere, fell on deaf ears.

Gaius slammed the door to Merlin's own room shut in the warlock's face for the second time that morning.

Merlin sighed, rubbed at his swollen ankles, and collapsed down onto Gaius' bed.

He could feel something poking up from beneath the mattress.

Merlin had the deepest respect for his mentor's privacy, which was why he waited at least ten seconds before delving under the bed to see what was there.

It was a cardboard box. Not that Merlin knew that, of course. He didn't know what cardboard was. As far as he was concerned, it looked like really, really flimsy wood.

Written on the front, in green permanent marker, were the words, _Gaius' Private Stuff. Touch it and die, Merlin. _

Merlin was incensed: how could Gaius believe he would be as insensitive as to rifle through someone else's personal belongings? In fact, Merlin was so very incensed that he decided to rifle right through that stupid box, just to teach Gaius a lesson about making unfair judgements.

Inside the box were a number of strange things. There was a small, pink notebook, on the front of which was written (in glittery gel-pen) _Gaius' Revenge Notebook: Merlin Edition_. Merlin slid that into his pocket, making a mental note to read through it later. There was also a little silver box with weird wires coming out of it that said 'apple' on the back (what the contraption had to do with fruit, Merlin simply couldn't fathom); a thing that called itself a 'Gilmore Girls DVD Box set'; and a book (the margins of which were filled with writings by Gaius) called _Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, _which sounded particularly stupid to Merlin, since it was so obviously not the case.

He fiddled with the silver box for a while, trying to find an opening in it, but had no luck.

Merlin let out a sigh of frustration, and dumped the odd metal 'apple' thing loudly on the table - he didn't care if Gaius found it and realised Merlin had been looking through his private things, maybe it would teach Gaius not to claim Merlin's bedroom as his own personal hermit-grounds every time his eyebrows mysteriously vanished.

As Merlin sat at one of the benches, listening to the sounds of Gaius wailing from the other room, he was a little surprised to see Gwen chasing a herd of rampaging red rabbits down the corridor.

_Of course_, he thought to himself with a sigh. _Nothing had been done about the plotbunnies yet…_

Merlin had been so busy with Gaius; he'd forgotten to remind Arthur to order everyone in Camelot to start writing. As great a battle-leader as Prince Arthur Pendragon was, if he wasn't persistently nagged to do something, he would simply forget about it, and start thinking about something else (usually food-related) instead.

Resigned as he was to his fate as Camelot's problem-sorter-outer; Merlin hauled himself to his feet, and trudged wearily to the courtyard, where he was confronted by the rather curious sight of a long chain of ellipsis, all handcuffed together, looking exceptionally put out, being lead into the castle by a group of knights. At the end of the chain was a question mark, who seemed to be asking _'Why us?'_ as he tagged along after them dejectedly.

From Merlin's spot in the square, he could see Arthur standing on the balcony, issuing a proclamation. For a moment, his heart skipped a beat. _Could it be? Could the day finally have come when Arthur had remembered something important without needing to be constantly reminded about it by Merlin?_

Merlin was sorely disappointed by what followed.

"All forwards and backwards slashes will report to the council chambers to be questioned on the charge of conspiracy to slash."

Arthur rolled up his big fancy scroll and toddled off.

Merlin was left to roll his eyes, and try and solve the problem by himself. As usual.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vegetables talking to a small group of strange, cloaked people in the corner of the courtyard. She turned to him, offered a friendly smile, and gestured for him to come over.

_Perhaps Merlin wouldn't have to solve this one all on his own…_

**.**

Eventually, Gaius grew tired of rubbing at his swollen eyes in solitude, and decided to venture out into the main body of the physician's chambers; certain that, by now, Merlin would have done something stupid that he could chide him about. Gaius did love a nice bit of Merlin-chiding…

But, unfortunately for Gaius, Merlin had apparently found something better to do than sit around, waiting for his mentor to emerge and begin berating him.

_How disappointing…_

Gaius was about to start mixing random, colourful ingredients to make pretty potions; when he saw his iPod lurking on the table.

Gaius didn't recall leaving it there…

_Never mind_, he thought to himself, fitting the earphones into his lobes, and smiling as he selected his favourite tunes. _I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth._

To the cheery sound of Cee Lo Green, Gaius began to bop around the castle.

**.**

Arthur slammed his hands down hard on the table, intimidating the quivering backwards slash in front of him.

"Tell me what you know!" he commanded, looming over the piece of punctuation that now looked close to tears.

"B-but… I don't know what you're talking about…" it insisted, in a thick Spanish accent.

"Liar!" Arthur hissed, bouncing away from it, pointing his finger in the face of a nearby hyphen. "You're all liars! I know you have been sent here by this _author_ to try and bring down Camelot… What exactly is your mission?"

A group of colons shifted uncomfortably on the spot.

Just as Arthur retreated to begin the most menacing part of his speech, there was a strange, high-pitched warbling sound from down the corridor.

Arthur armed himself, making his famous hand gestures (which nobody really understood) at the knights.

He stuck his head out of the door. "Who is it?"

"I see you driving round town with the girl I love and I'm like…" an eyebrow-less Gaius hopped around the corner. "FORGET YOU! Ooh!"

"Gaius!" Arthur hurried towards the physician. "What's wrong? Are you trapped in one of those horrendous _songfics_?"

Gaius danced straight past Arthur, as if he had not even noticed him at all. "I guess the change in my pocket wasn't enough, and I'm like FORGET YOU! And forget her too…"

With that, Gaius pirouetted around the corner, snapped his fingers, and skipped merrily away.

Arthur frowned, and put out a hand to stop the trail of underscores making a break for freedom.

**.**

Vegetables passed Merlin a peculiar pair of glasses that she had had hidden up the sleeve of her coat; they were black, thick-rimmed, had no lenses, and came with a complimentary large nose and moustache.

"They're to cover up Gaius' eyebrows…"

"How did you know?"

Vegetables smirked in a fashion that suggested she practised a lot (she did - but only when mocking Morgana, you understand), and told him "We have our ways…"

Merlin did not think to ask her who 'we' were, or what she meant by her 'ways' (which she was a little disappointed by, since she would have been perfectly happy to explain); spending a certain amount of time in the company of druids, dragons and demons eventually makes a person immune to cryptic comments.

One of the other members of the group, who had simply been standing around in that slightly creepy manner that so many people Merlin met seemed to do, removed their hood, to reveal another face much like Vegetables'.

This person, who had (somehow) managed to achieve the same quality of being totally indescribable, was a little different. She was smaller, sharper and easily excitable. She also seemed to enjoy pulling a wide variety of strange facial expressions.

"Merlin!" she squealed enthusiastically, holding out a hand for him to shake, then removing it before he could shake it, and sticking her tongue out at him. "I'm Arrow'Nash."

"That's an odd name…"

"Says the boy with the funny ears who's called Merlin!" she retorted, before getting distracted by something shiny she thought she caught sight of behind her, causing her to spin around on the spot, trying to catch it.

"Is she alright?" Merlin asked, waving his hand in front of the girl, who now appeared as though she was trying to eat her own nose.

"Hmm?" Vegetables observed Arrow'Nash with a slightly bored expression. "Oh… Yeah… She's always doing that…"

"Riiight… Who are the others?"

"These two are called M. Diane and ringo'simaginarycat…"

"Do any of you people have normal names?"

"Err…" Vegetables considered this. "No. No, I don't think so."

Merlin turned to the two who had just been named, and was surprised to find them bland and totally shapeless.

"Don't comment on it," Vegetables warned him out of the side of her mouth. "They can be a bit sensitive…"

"Who are they?"

"We're not sure… They're anonymous reviewers…" she gave them an uncertain glance. "But we need all the help we can get…"

"Help with what?"

"We've come to help you writing…"

"Writing?"

"Yes - it's how to get rid of the plotbunnies. And we _are_ all writers… It seemed obvious."

Merlin resisted the urge to hug her; it was so rare that somebody decided to help him.

"And… who are the others?"

**.**

Merlin was strolling back down the corridors, feeling a little better after his lesson with Vegetables' odd friends about alliteration, rhyme and metre.

He paused as a random string of cApiTaL LeTtErS streaked past him down the hallway.

Merlin entered the physician's chambers to the somewhat unusual sight of Gaius attempting to fashion eyebrows for himself out of circumflexes.

"Gaius?"

Gaius didn't respond, he simply hummed a weird tune to himself, and did a strange, jittery dance around Merlin, as if the warlock wasn't even there.

"Gaius? Are you alright?"

Gaius began to mutter to himself, a mad grin on his face, "If you were gay, that'd be okay."

"I'm sorry? Are you talking to me?" Merlin looked around the space, and couldn't see anyone else that Gaius might be talking to…

"I mean 'cause, hey, I'd like you anyway. Because you see, if it were me, I would feel free to say that I was gay!"

Merlin frowned. "But… I'm not gay."

Gaius seemed determined to continue nonetheless, "If you were queer, I'd still be here; year after year because you're dear to me."

Merlin wanted to appreciate the sentiment, but it was all a bit too odd for him.

"And I know that you would accept me too,"

"But…" Merlin tried to interrupt again, only to be silenced by Gaius' flailing jazz hands.

"If I told you today, 'Hey! Guess what? I'm gay!'"

"But I'm not gay!" Merlin insisted.

Gaius would not be deterred. "I'm happy just being with you. So what should it matter to me what you do in bed with guys?"

"Gaius!"

"If you were gay, I'd shout hooray! And here I'd stay but I wouldn't get in your way!"

"I don't want to hear any more of this…"

"You can count on me to always be beside you every day…"

"You _are _beside me every day, whether I like it or not."

"To tell you it's okay, you were just born that way…"

"Oh! You have got to be kidding me! Seriously? I 'was just born that way'? That's the line you take with homosexuality, but when it comes to magic it's all, '_where did you study, boy?'_!"

"And, as they say, it's in your DNA, you're gay!"

"BUT I'M NOT GAY!" Merlin screamed so loudly that every single citizen of Camelot paused to digest this new information.

Gaius blinked at him, smiled blankly, and removed his headphones. "Can I help you, Merlin? Why are you facepalming?"

**A/N: So all those of you who guessed that you would get to be in 'The League' were right! The guys who appeared in this chapter were all people who left me funny songs about Lord Godfrey's daughter... (M. Diane - sorry, I can't write the name on this website without leaving a gap between the full stop and the 'D', but I know that there isn't meant to be a gap there!) But don't fret! You shall ALL get to be in The League! YAY! To help me with this... If, when you leave a review (which... you don't have to... but it would be nice if you did), you could just let me know if you're male/female - because it really does help make the writing sound less stilted, and I don't want to have to PM you all individually!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Right... Thanks go to jaqtkd, whose idea it was that Arthur's punctuation purge would result in a worrying lack of commas. Jaq, you asked for it; you got it. Thanks also go to CharDouken, who is responsible for the joke in here about 'interrobanging'. For those of you wondering, an interrobang is a question mark and an exclamation mark all smushed together... The reviews I've been getting for this story are ridiculously nice, thank you so much! You're all so lovely! As for _The League_... I'm holding off on that, because I think I can squeeze a few more chapters out before then, but it is coming, I promise... Please review and let me know if you're still enjoying it! I just wanted to say thanks to all the anonymous reviewers out there... I can't reply to you, but you're still awesome! And eFox, you said in your review that I was lucky to have mad, Merlin-loving friends, and you are very right! I am also lucky to have all of you nice people, so thanks very much!**

Overnight Arthur's inner Uther had emerged, and a purge of punctuation had begun in Camelot. From the dungeons the haunting cries of condemned apostrophes could be heard throughout the night; the executions were to begin in the morning.

Merlin and Gaius pondered the ramifications of all this over a bowl of what Gaius called 'porridge' (and Merlin called 'pig swill').

"It doesn't seem fair to punish them just because of what they are…" Merlin ventured, wincing as an inverted exclamation mark was dragged down the hallway behind them, protesting its innocence to no avail.

"Oh Merlin!" Gaius exclaimed with a sigh, doling him out a rather large lump of grey sludge. "They aren't like people; they are _punctuation_! You must learn to stop anthropomorphising. You're almost as bad as Gwen and those bunnies…"

Merlin frowned. He didn't want to end up like Gwen, who had actually barricaded herself into her home in protest, bunnies and all, because she refused to hand them over to the knights. As far as Merlin knew, she was still locked away in there now, smothered by bunnies, screeching _"We shall not, we shall not be moved!"_ at any passer-by who might happen to be listening.

"No," Merlin agreed. "I think maybe Gwen has taken things a bit far…"

Gaius rolled his eyes. "Well… What do you expect from a Mary Sue?"

Merlin had absolutely no idea what Gaius was talking about, but decided to let it go. Gaius was simply grumpy because he had to wear Vegetables' joke glasses everywhere since his eyebrows had yet to be returned to him.

"Anyway…" Gaius continued, grasping a fork in his hand and looking down hungrily at his breakfast. "I don't see how a punctuation purge can cause much trouble for Camelot… Give it some time and all will return to normal."

_Return to normal? _Merlin raised his eyebrows in the direction of his special maternity-trousers, but said nothing.

Gaius opened his mouth to speak.

Under ordinary circumstances, what Gaius wanted to say would have been absolutely fine.

However, since the commas had been the first to get it in the neck in Arthur's punctuation purge, Gaius could not say what he had intended to.

Prince Arthur had failed to appreciate that commas really can save lives.

Because, you see, instead of Gaius saying what he wanted to, "Let's eat, Merlin"; what he actually found himself saying, since there was nary a comma in sight, was "Let's eat Merlin".

That changed everything.

From the moment Gaius uttered that sentence, his eyes adopted a hungry glint, and his grip on the fork in his hand tightened as he licked his lips.

Gaius, the dear, doddery old physician, had apparently decided to try out cannibalism.

On Merlin.

Gaius rose to his feet, and stealthily tiptoed towards Merlin, gnashing his teeth and eyeing the warlock's forearms with thirst.

On balance, Merlin thought now would probably be a good time to run away.

Kicking the wooden bench out from beneath his feet (and narrowly avoiding tripping over it) Merlin bolted off down the corridor (as fast as a heavily pregnant man can) with a hungry Gaius charging after him.

He weaved his way around corners, hopping over surprised kitchen maids and skipping around pillars, all the while hearing the sounds of an advancing Gaius behind him.

Eventually Merlin reached an alcove with a curtain conveniently placed directly in front of it, and he promptly slipped into the darkness.

Merlin's breath tangled in his throat as the sounds of Gaius' pottering footsteps neared the hallway.

Gaius doddered closer… closer… closer…

Merlin could practically hear the swish of Gaius' robes as he stopped to sniff carnivorously at the curtain, searching for any indication of his prey.

There was a pause.

A pause that lasted far too long for Merlin's liking.

He was on the brink of releasing a breath that would betray his whereabouts and no doubt have him made into warlock stew; when the unmistakable sound of Gaius toddling off reached his overly large ears.

Merlin let loose the breath that had been gnawing away at his throat, and slumped into the wall, his body sagging with relief.

And then he felt that he was being watched.

Cautiously, he turned to see a pair of shivering quotation marks curled up in a shadow in the corner of the alcove, practically crying with fright at the sight of him.

He smiled at the petrified punctuation, taking pity on them, and raised his finger to his lips, smiling just a little.

He would not tell anybody where they were.

Merlin glanced around stealthily, and then opened up his pocket, to reveal a space just big enough for them to stow away in.

They watched him warily, but, as the sounds of approaching footsteps began again, they realised they would have to take their chances with this stranger, and hopped into the cushy lining of his trousers, trying not to snigger as they noticed just how large a pot belly this fellow had.

The quotation marks acted just in time, as, seconds after they were concealed, the curtain was pulled back, to reveal one Sir Leon, who seemed slightly confused.

Merlin sprung to his feet.

The two men stood awkwardly, sizing one another up for a minute.

"Merlin…" Leon began, trying not to smile. "Why are you hiding in an alcove?"

"I wasn't hiding…"

Leon leaned against the wall and grinned at Merlin, taking the sight of the squirming servant in. "Is it because everybody knows?"

"Knows what?"

Leon seemed sympathetic. "Everybody heard you and Gaius last night…"

Merlin's face flushed bright red, but he kept his mouth shut. He figured that he could say nothing that would help his case at this point.

"It's okay, Merlin," Leon patted him on the arm, smiling soothingly. "It's hard to come to terms with… But we will all accept you for who you are."

"No you won't! This is the Middle Ages! You're going to call me a devil-worshipper and try and burn me for being unnatural!"

"Oh, Merlin… Don't try and detract from the main issue here… You're in denial."

"I am not!"

Leon threw Merlin a sympathetic but patronising look, and nodded. "Well… when you feel ready to talk about it…"

"I am not gay!"

Leon raised his eyebrows in the direction of the quotation marks poking out rather suggestively at just the wrong part of Merlin's trousers. "Really, Merlin? So… Is that a lance in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

And with that, Leon sauntered off, leaving Merlin gawking down in embarrassment at his crotch.

Merlin didn't have much time to do this, however, as he soon heard the sounds of Gaius pootling back, and had to make a quick escape, inappropriately placed quotation marks and all.

**.**

Merlin found himself running and running all the way through the castle and through the upper and lower towns (a sight the citizens were used to by now) soon reaching the house of one bunny-loving Guinevere, who was still barricaded in.

"Gwen!" he howled, thumping on the boarded-up windows. "Let me in, please!"

There was no response other than the confused chirping of bunnies, who seemed displeased to have been disturbed from their afternoon nap.

Merlin collapsed to the floor and began to sniffle a little bit; rubbing at his face which had become red and clammy from all the running. Today just wasn't his day…

And then, just as all hope seemed lost, he was approached by a hooded figure. "Merlin?"

"Gwen?"

"What are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here? You're supposed to be in there… All locked up like a loony protesting for the rights of the plotbunnies!"

Gwen shrugged guiltily. "I popped out to go and pick some flowers…" she twirled a bunch of daisies under his nose as evidence of this. "I can't go too long without picking some flowers…"

Merlin sighed. Gwen's addiction to flower-picking was the least of his problems right now, and, as far as addictions go, was actually quite endearing.

"How did you get out without people noticing?"

"Hmm? Oh… I just yelled sorcerer at some randomer and then hopped out of the window. Everyone was pretty distracted so no one noticed me… You know, it's really not that hard to get past Camelot's guards?"

Merlin looked at the pair of guards who had been stationed outside of Gwen's house with the instruction of making sure that no one either enter or leave; who had been standing there, staring blankly into the middle distance throughout the entirety of his and Gwen's conversation, as if nothing was happening.

Merlin waved a hand in front of one of their faces, and the guard didn't so much as blink.

The warlock shook his head in disbelief. "They're totally oblivious…"

Gwen kicked the other guard quite hard in the shin, and when he barely even flinched, she was forced to agree.

She offered Merlin a daisy and smiled brightly at him. "Shall we go in?"

Merlin paused, considering just what her house might look like with all those rabbits…

Then he saw Gaius approaching; tracking Merlin's footsteps through the town, and Merlin decided he'd take his chances with the plotbunnies.

Gwen and Merlin happily set about removing the planks of wood that were obstructing the door and then scurried inside.

One of the guards turned around, almost noticing a lavender skirt disappear inside the tiny house.

The guard yawned, and turned to his companion. "Nice weather we're having, eh Nigel?"

**.**

"So… Merlin," Gwen began, scooping aside the bunnies to make a place for him to sit at the table. "Why have you come to see me, 'crazy bunny lady'?"

"I need your help with something…" Merlin paused, temporarily forgetting about the quotation marks in his pocket. "You've known Sir Leon a long time, right?"

Gwen nodded, ruffling the ears of a passing rabbit as she did so.

"Well… I was talking to him earlier… and… uh… I just got this strange vibe off him… um… Is he gay, by any chance?"

Gwen smiled. "Gay as a maypole. Why do you ask?"

"Oh… He was just… err…"

"Do you like him?"

"What? No! No… Of course not! That's ridiculous… Gwen, why would you ask such a question?"

"Wait… So… You're not gay?"

"No!"

"Oh… I just assumed…"

"What do you mean _you just assumed_?"

"Well… You may not have noticed, but, when we were younger, I had a bit of a crush on you…"

Here Merlin snorted rather unhelpfully. "Oh, believe me, Gwen: I noticed."

Gwen scowled at him, and continued as if he hadn't spoken. "At first, when you continually ignored me, I assumed you just didn't like _me_, but then there were all those guys…"

"All _what_ guys, Gwen?"

"Um… Well… You always seem to have an attractive, topless man in your bedroom…"

"Give me one example, Gwen."

"Lancelot."

"Oh, come on! That doesn't count! Give me another example!"

"Gwaine."

"What?"

"And you were quite friendly with that Gilli kid, too…"

"Gilli? I think I could do better than _Gilli_!"

"And there was obviously something going on between you and Will. Obviously."

"Can a man not have a best friend?"

Gwen sighed, and patted Merlin on the back. "I'm sorry, Merlin. But the evidence against you is compelling… Plus you're so sweet and sensitive… It all adds up."

"It does not _all add up_! This is ridiculous…" Merlin huffed, and grabbed the nearest bunny ammunition, which he was about to hurl at Gwen to express his discontent when he remembered he had actually come to see her for a reason. "Look… My sexuality aside, I did need to talk to you about something…" Merlin pulled the quotation marks from his pocket, and laid them down on the table in front of Gwen. "I need some help with these two…"

The larger of the pair turned to Gwen, and spoke his piece, "Good lady, my name is Angelo, and this is my wife, Georgiana. We came to Camelot in search of a new life, and instead found only despair and sorrow. We are persecuted because of what we are and I find I do not know how to protect myself or my dear wife. We lay our lives in your hands; we put ourselves at your mercy…"

Gwen raised her eyebrows and muttered to Merlin, "He's very eloquent for a piece of punctuation."

Merlin had to agree.

Before the quotation mark could continue with his touching monologue of its assorted struggles and woes, Gwen agreed to help it. She did, after all, have connections with the newly established underground Camelot punctuation resistance network.

As Merlin turned to leave, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a purple rabbit. A purple rabbit with a glittery tail. Vegetables would have to be informed…

**.**

Arthur stood on the impressive stone balcony, dressed in his father's ceremonial execution cape (which he'd always wanted to get a chance to wear, and was now having to resist the urge to swish around in) glaring stonily down at the slash that was bent over the execution block.

"Do you have any last words?"

The slash shook (what they thought was probably) its head for the last time.

A gruesome _slice_ rung through the air, and the bloodthirsty crowd let out a collective _"ooh!" _watching eagerly as the next slash was led up.

Gaius turned to one of the knights next to him, and inquired very innocently as to whether the knight in question had seen Merlin that morning.

The knight raised an eyebrow in the direction of knife and fork Gaius was gripping very tightly in his hands, and the trail of saliva wriggling down his chin, and replied that he had not seen Merlin at all.

Gaius was disappointed.

**.**

Merlin burst into the King's chambers (where he had been informed he would surely find Vegetables) with a furious purple rabbit in his clutches.

The rabbit did not appear to like being dangled upside down by its ankles, and was gnawing away at Merlin's hand rather viciously.

Vegetables' face broke out into a grin the moment she saw the rabid little creature.

"My plotbunny! Wherever did you find it?"

"It was at Gwen's house."

Vegetables nodded knowingly. "I tried to search all of the bunnies there, but there were just too many. They were like one giant, seething mass of rabbit…" she snapped her fingers as if a great idea had just occurred to her, and whipped around to Uther. "That's good! Write that down!"

"Already on it…" the King murmured in response, as his quill flew all over the parchment in front of him.

"What are you two doing?"

"Well…" Vegetables explained, getting a little excited as she did so. "Since nobody else seemed inclined to deal with the plotbunny issue, Uther and I took it upon ourselves to get writing. Uther's been working on some really great little oneshots, haven't you Uther?"

Uther looked up at her sheepishly. "Oh… I don't know. I don't think they're that good. But… If you say so…"

"Oh, Uther! Have a little more faith in yourself; your writing's fantastic!"

Uther grinned up at Merlin. "I like her…"

Vegetables seemed pleased at the compliment, and took the rabbit off Merlin's hands, scratching its ears absentmindedly. "I really ought to let peskychesk know about this… We can get writing some more of our story…"

Vegetables dug into her pocket and produced a peculiar brick-like device that looked to Merlin a little like Gaius' laptop had done. She pressed some buttons and then proceeded to talk to herself.

Merlin threw Uther a concerned glance, waiting for the King to declare that sorcery was afoot, and have Vegetables thrown in the dungeons.

Nothing happened.

Uther was clearly far too engrossed in his latest sonnet to worry about Vegetables' mobile phone.

Merlin backed out of the room and into the corridor.

He could deal with the pair of them later.

**.**

The knights were meeting in the hall, having a very serious discussion as to what was to be done about the 'semi's. Arthur's decision about the semi colons had been that the colons themselves were punctuation, and thus had to be burned at the stake, but that the 'semi's, since they weren't really anything at all, might be excused. This had led to a rather large number of widowed 'semi's left wailing at the loss of their colons around Camelot.

The biggest problem everyone faced was that no one really understood what these 'semi's were, which was making it a little hard to deal with the situation.

The argument in the hall was getting a little heated (Gwaine had grabbed Elyan by the ankles and was hoisting him above his head, preparing to use him as a weapon against Percival) when Merlin trundled in.

"Ah, Merlin," Elyan greeted him with a wave, looking slightly nauseous as Gwaine was now spinning him round in circles. "Leon says…"

Merlin knew what was coming. "I'm not gay!"

No one seemed particularly convinced. "Merlin… We all still want to be your friends…" Elyan insisted as he turned ever-so-slightly green.

"Special friends!" Leon added, with a wink.

"I'M NOT GAY!"

Gwaine snorted, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." With that Gwaine hurled Elyan across the hall, nearly sending him crashing into Merlin, and Arthur quickly shoved Merlin into the corridor, where he would be safe from harm's way.

"I'm not gay," Merlin reiterated, looking solemnly into Arthur's eyes.

"That would probably be more convincing if you hadn't been impregnated by a man…"

"By you!"

"About that… Do you want to wear white at the wedding? Or would that be pushing it a bit, in your condition?"

"Are you being serious?"

"Deadly serious. Illegitimate children are absolutely not an option. I don't want another Morgana on my hands…"

Merlin held up a hand to silence him. "I don't want to hear about our wedding plans, Arthur… I've got bigger problems right now…"

Arthur folded his arms across his chest. "Oh really, such as?"

"Well, in case it had escaped your notice, your punctuation purge is having some rather negative side effects… Gaius has spent his morning trying to eat me."

"And that's my fault because…?"

"Because there are no commas!"

"I think you need a sit down, Merlin…"

"And it's becoming harder and harder for me to express excitement or surprise - exclamation marks are getting really hard to come by, you know?"

At this point, Gwaine stuck his head around the door. "I might be able to provide you with the odd exclamation mark… At the right price…"

"Not now, Gwaine," Arthur barked, in his most authoritative voice, causing the knight to scurry back off to the fight in the council room.

"Do you see what's happening, Arthur? People are resorting to shady punctuation deals; have you visited the lower town recently? It's horrendous. I saw a man sell his own grandmother just for an underscore…"

"I hardly think the situation is that bad…"

As if on cue, one of the most elusive pieces of punctuation there is, the interrobang, snuck up behind Merlin and started interrobanging him right there up against the wall.

As much as Arthur enjoyed playing the part of heroic rescuer and slicing up Merlin's attacker into little tiny pieces that now lay quivering on the floor, it meant that he was forced to admit that the situation really was _that bad_.

All of a sudden the din issuing forth from the council room that had previously been deafening suddenly ceased entirely.

Arthur raised an eyebrow at Merlin, as he helped him off the floor. "What do you suppose…?"

Slowly, they pushed the doors open to reveal that everyone and everything in the room had frozen entirely.

Gwaine was paused midway through attempting to shove Sir Percival out of a window; Percy had been halted grabbing onto the curtains for dear life; Elyan was perfectly still as he dangled from the chandelier and Leon stood in the centre like a statue, clearly trying to act as the voice of reason.

"What's happened to them?"

"Ow!" Merlin exclaimed, turning to scowl at Gaius who had appeared out of nowhere and bitten into his earlobe with vigour. "Get off me, Gaius!"

Arthur threw the physician and the servant a disapproving look. "Please… What has happened to my knights?"

Merlin shook his head fiercely, trying to dislodge Gaius from his ear.

Gaius managed to tell Arthur, through a mouthful of Merlin's ear, "The screen's frozen."

"What?"

"The screen on the author's laptop has frozen. A common side effect of a virus, I'm afraid. They could be stuck like that for a while; it could take half an hour for the screen to refresh…"

The knights jarred back to life temporarily with a roar, before freezing up again.

"Almost as bad as those stupid YouTube videos…" Gaius muttered to himself, as Merlin tried to swat him away unsuccessfully.

Arthur span back and forth between the two scenes - his manservant being eaten by the court physician and his best knights frozen in the midst of a rumble - and realised he had absolutely no idea how to deal with the situation.

"How could things possibly get any worse?"

Now, if Merlin hadn't currently been trying to discourage his mentor from digesting him, then he would have recognised that question as a sign of the dangerous direction Arthur's thoughts were sure to soon travel in.

It had occurred to absolutely every other person in Camelot that it would be really, really bad if Morgana were to find out what was going on, because she could so easily use it to her advantage and wreak havoc. Either that or she might throw a tantrum because someone else was causing more problems than her, and she couldn't believe that they'd all managed to replace her so easily. Whatever happened: it wouldn't be good.

It had also occurred to absolutely every other person in Camelot that, because the author could hear everything they were saying, it would be a really, really bad idea to say out loud that it would be really, really bad if Morgana were to find out what was going on; no one wanted to give the crazy slasher ideas…

Unfortunately, it had only just occurred to Arthur that it would be really, really bad if Morgana were to find out what was going on, and, because he was a person who felt the need to immediately vocalise just about everything he was thinking, he then said, "Wouldn't it be really, really bad if Morgana were to find out what was going on?"

There was an ominous pause, as the author giggled gleefully at their stroke of inspiration.

Gaius even stopped chewing Merlin's ear for a second to throw Arthur a look of sheer horror.

**.**

Far, far away, in a damp, mysterious-looking cave, Morgana and Morgause were lounging around in an uncomfortable silence because they had run out of new ways to complement each other's hair, when an ingenious idea suddenly struck Morgause.

"Ssssssssister?"

"Hmm?"

"You know what we haven't done in a really long time?"

"Shrink Cenred's trousers overnight?"

"Well… No… I suppose we haven't done that in a while… But it wasn't really what I was thinking of…"

"Brush each other's hair and talk about our feelings?"

"We did that last night…"

"I know… I just like doing it. Your hair is so nice."

"Your hair is nice too."

"You're so pretty, Morgause."

"You're pretty too, Sister…"

"I love you, Morgause!"

"Um… I love you too, Sister…"

"And people say our relationship is weird…"

"What?" the blonde witch's eyes flashed fantastically gold. "Who says we're weird? I shall make them regret the day they were born!"

"I don't know 'who'… Just people, Morgause…"

There was a pause. Neither of them had anything to say.

"You're so pretty, Morgause!"

"You're pretty too, Sister."

"I love you, Morgause."

"Attack Camelot!"

"What?"

"That's the thing we haven't done in ages: attack Camelot."

Morgana rolled her eyes and sighed. "Do we have to? We never seem to win anyway… And I just got my hair the way I like it…"

"I have a good feeling about it this time; I think this is our time!"

"Oh, well, if you have a good feeling about it," Morgana agreed, not a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "I'll go along with everything you say, Morgause. Because I love you, Morgause."

"I love you too, Sister."

Morgana squealed with delight, rubbing her hands together as evilly as she could. She got up straight away to go and find a mirror she could practise smirking in.

They would set out for Camelot in the morning…


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Okay, people. Bear with me here (grr). I know this chapter is longer than normal, but I have WAY too many ideas... If you're one of those people who has suggested an idea and I've said I want to use it, please don't be disheartened if it's not in this chapter. I'm still planning on using it, I've just got loads of stuff going on in this story. It's completely mental. I quickly wanted to say thank you to my anonymous reviewers once again (eFox - that is very sweet of you, V - I've heard scarier things, and CM - I shan't kiss Merlin, I promise!) and M. Diane - because you asked about whether or not I wonder about what it would look like on screen when I write... Um... Yes, I do have a 'keen sense of visuals', (thanks, by the way!), but it's not so much a conscious process of _what would this look like?_ as the way I write being very much about seeing the pictures in my mind's eye, and interpreting that into language (or sometimes interpreting language into words - either way, it's not an intentional thing, I see clear pictures of what happens when I write, rather than thinking about what it would look like). Thanks for the review (and I hadn't even thought about the effect my writing would have on poor Victor...)! Thanks to everyone else who is reading/reviewing/alerting/favouriting. You guys actually make my life. No joke. Also, credit goes to M. Diane for the joke about tildes in here, and also for Uther's benevolent attitude towards Merlin and Arthur's blossoming love. Also, the song that appears here is from _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_. If you haven't seen it, you should have. One thing left to say which is that, as you will see if you make it to the end of this chapter, _The League_ is on its way! :)**

**p.s. I won't mind if it's just too long and you can't be bothered with it!**

"What?" Arthur demanded, confused by the gaping expressions of both Gaius and Merlin before him.

As the seriousness of the situation registered, Gaius' jaw dropped.

With his ear suddenly free, Merlin yelped in satisfaction and quickly scurried off to hide behind Arthur before Gaius could reattach himself.

"What's wrong?"

Gaius shook his head a little, not able to fully believe that anyone could be that much of a prat. "You really have no idea how much of an idiot you are, do you, Sire?"

Merlin sniggered a little, making certain to stay directly behind the Prince as he tried to turn around to berate his servant.

"Merlin," Arthur warned, as he snapped his head over his shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of Merlin, who was really just too fast for him. "You might be hiding from me, but that doesn't mean I don't know you're there…"

"Really? I wouldn't put it past you…" Gaius muttered, throwing Arthur a sweet-little-old-man smile that made it extremely hard to stay angry with him.

"Are you trying to insult me," Arthur stated.

_Wait… he 'stated'?_

Merlin crept out from behind Arthur to share an extremely worried look with Gaius. Arthur had surely meant to ask them a question, but what Arthur had said was no question.

This could be very bad.

The pair of them stood, looking off into space as they tried to count the number of questions they had used in the space of the last few minutes.

Had they run out of question marks?

Then again, they didn't want to go jumping to conclusions and getting all panicked over nothing.

Arthur was not exactly the shiniest pebble on the beach, and it was perfectly possible that he had simply meant to ask a question, and forgotten what it was that he was talking about mid-sentence.

That did happen quite often.

Merlin and Gaius edged closer towards Arthur, who was eyeing them suspiciously as they reached out to poke him.

"Are you feeling alright," Merlin pointed out, as he sniffed the air around Arthur suspiciously.

Unfortunately, he had answered his own non-question.

Gaius raised an eyebrow at Merlin.

Arthur, tired of the servants communicating through facial expressions and not including him in their chat, decided to interrupt. "Would either of you care to explain," he didn't ask.

"Sire… It appears that we have used up the last of Camelot's question marks."

"What. How is that even possible."

"You killed them all," Merlin reminded him, rather bluntly.

"Oh yes… Oops."

Arthur frowned, pondering the connotations of this.

Gaius and Merlin were about to take this as their cue to slink off surreptitiously (it could take Arthur several hours of pondering before he would come to any kind of reasonable conclusion), when Arthur began to speak again.

They sighed, and turned back around to face him to humour whatever not-particularly-intelligent thing it was he had to suggest next.

"How am I going to interrogate people," he told them, matter-of-factly.

That was actually not an entirely stupid concern.

Merlin beamed back at him. "You just need to practise inflections…"

Arthur threw Merlin a look (which the warlock caught) that clearly said, _'Inflections?'_

"Yeah… You know… Lifting your voice up at the end of a sentence. Like… How are you today Gai-_us_."

Arthur seemed to be considering this. "Did you steal the st-_one_… You're my sis-_ter_… What's a lib-_rary_…"

This was definitely Merlin and Gaius' cue to leave. Arthur could well and truly be trusted to stand there, mumbling to himself, for a quite substantial period of time.

Unfortunately, at that moment, Uther swooped past them in his big swishy cape, commanding such authority and respect as he sauntered along that he would have made Arthur extremely jealous (if Arthur wasn't currently staring determinedly at his boots, demanding of them why it was that Lancelot's hair was always so stupidly perfect).

"You two!" the King barked as he glided past them into the council room. "I am calling a meeting! You are to attend!"

Gaius and Merlin were so shocked to see Uther back to his former state of Uther-ness that they didn't even think to ask where he had got his exclamation marks from.

Uther glared at the doors and they seemed to almost open for him (although Merlin suspected that Uther might have nudged them a tad with his foot as well) and swanned in.

He seemed a little surprised to see Camelot's newest knights stock-still in the process of attacking each other.

But not as surprised as one might have expected.

He simply rolled his eyes, muttered something about having to do _everything himself_, charged up to Gwaine and rapped solidly on his forehead.

With a jolt of something rather like electricity, the knights in the room shuddered back to life, and were about to resume their ruckus, when they noticed that they were being observed by a somewhat unimpressed King Uther.

"When you're quite finished…" he told them, nestling down into the comfortable imprint his rear end had made on his thrown over the years.

The knights shared a bashful look.

Gwaine coughed, and slowly lowered Percival back to the ground, who in turn relinquished his grip on the curtains.

Leon held out his arms for Elyan to tumble down into from his current location dangling from the chandelier on the ceiling, and then held on to him a little longer than was probably strictly necessary…

"I have received some rather distressing news."

Uther paused for dramatic effect, but had failed to take account of the fact that the newbie knights weren't quite used to the way the King liked to operate.

Thinking that Uther was awaiting some kind of response, Gwaine rocked back and forth a little on his heels, and chimed, in a sing-song voice, "What news, Uther?"

At this, Merlin's eyebrows shot straight up his forehead and disappeared into his hairline. He turned to Gaius and muttered, "He's got a _question mark_…"

Gaius nodded solemnly, pretending to be seriously considering what it was Merlin had said, but in reality just wondering if anybody would notice if he had another nibble of his nephew…

An ominous silence had filled the council room.

It was an unspoken rule that no one ever interrupted Uther's dramatic pauses.

No one.

Ever.

Leon elbowed Gwaine quite sharply, and gave the King an apologetic look. "I'm sorry Sire, he's new…"

Uther leaned forward in his thrown, squinting at the scruffy knight who smelt suspiciously like a cross between a tavern and a compost heap.

"I don't recognise any of you people…"

"Ah… No, you wouldn't," Elyan piped up helpfully. "We're commoners. Very nice of you to let us have a crack at this knighthood thing, by the way…"

At this piece of information Uther turned a peculiar shade of purple, and a previously unseen vein in his forehead swelled to about the size of a grapefruit.

"Commoners! As knights of Camelot…"

Leon cut in, sensing that the situation might well rapidly deteriorate from here (Gwaine had already drunk half a barrel of Meade that morning). "Uh… The distressing news, Sire…"

"Ah… Yes. I have received some rather distressing news."

Uther paused for dramatic effect once more, and this time (thankfully) his pause went uninterrupted.

"I have received word from one of our look-outs posted in the outlying regions that Morgana and Morgause are returning to Camelot… With an army…"

When they were all absolutely certain that the King was done speaking, they felt free to be suitably horrified, and gasped quite a bit.

The rest of the meeting was of little consequence.

Elyan rejected Leon's romantic advances; Gaius was sorely reprimanded for attempting to season Merlin; and the knights were dispatched to go and work out some sort of battle plan (because they all decided that that seemed to be the appropriate thing to do in such a situation), except for Gwaine, who was instructed to go home and take a bath.

He didn't seem to understand what a 'bath' was, because he seemed rather excited about it.

At the very end of the meeting, just as everyone other than Uther and Merlin had filtered out, something peculiar happened.

The author was apparently rather bored.

Either that or they had suddenly realised that they had managed to write an entire fanfiction, with an all-powerful warlock as the protagonist, and magic had yet to occur.

For whatever reason, Merlin's hand suddenly lifted itself, all of its own accord, and he began to shoot long silvery yarn from his wrists in an unimaginative imitation of Spiderman.

Much to Merlin's dismay, the girly effects of his pregnancy were clearly still being felt, as the yarn knitted itself into a lumpy, granny-ish jumper before his very eyes.

Uther turned towards the source of the unusual flashing light, and squinted at the misshapen knitwear hanging in the air for no obvious reason.

Merlin waited with baited breath.

Uther yawned, and scratched his nose, strolling straight past Merlin.

"Nice jumper," he told him, with a genuine and very un-Uther-like smile on his face.

And it seemed as though that was all King Uther had to say about the ugly, grey garment dangling three feet off the ground in his council room.

The King strolled along the corridor, humming a little to himself, enjoying the smacking sound of his heavy boots colliding with the floor, when he stopped.

Merlin found himself absolutely unable to run. It was almost as if his feet had grown into the floor; as if they had become an inexorable part of the castle's groundwork. His legs would not budge.

_Oh dear._

"Boy! Wait!" Uther commanded, turning to stride back towards Merlin, grim determination etched all across his features.

Every step Uther took closer to Merlin seemed to be echoed by a pounding beat of the warlock's heart. Images of a predetermined trial, a sleepless night in the dungeon, a harrowing last few moments standing in flames, flickered through Merlin's eyes as he stood and watched the King approach.

Somehow he knew; this was the end.

Uther drew to a halt, his face inches from Merlin's.

He narrowed his kingly eyes, and rested gloved hands on his regal hips.

Uther raised his hand, to strike him across the face, Merlin was certain; but instead the King reached into his back pocket, pulling out a tatty piece of paper, which he proceeded to thrust under Merlin's nose.

"Would you read this and tell me what you think?" Uther pleaded, his eyes now watery and innocent, his lip trembling as he awaited Merlin's judgement.

How could Merlin refuse?

It didn't even occur to him to ask just where exactly the King had sourced his last question mark from, he was too grateful to simply be alive.

Merlin took the piece of paper from his King's trembling hand, and tried not to feel too uncomfortable as Uther waddled very close up behind him, reading the words over Merlin's shoulder, studying the face of his audience very closely, trying to monitor his reactions.

"Sire, it's a little distracting with you breathing down my neck…"

"Of course!" Uther agreed, stepping back, but still watching Merlin with eager eyes.

As Merlin simply stood there, gawking at the paper, Uther took to pacing back and forth, fiddling with his fingers, constantly glancing up at Merlin for any indication of his opinion. "I just thought..." he tried to explain himself and also plug the awkward silence between them. "Since you're clearly the sensitive type, you might know about these things…"

Merlin resisted the urge to insist, for the umpteenth time that day, that he wasn't gay. He got the feeling that his protestations wouldn't be appreciated.

"Well… What do you think?"

Merlin gulped. He sensed that constructive criticism probably wouldn't be well received…

"You rhymed _feared_… with… with… _beard_…"

Uther nodded, not noting the disbelief in Merlin's voice, and choosing to take it as a compliment. "I was wondering if you might be able to think of a rhyme for _Vegetables_…"

"Errm… Wedge-tables…?"

Uther did not seem particularly impressed by Merlin's poetic prowess.

Before Merlin could begin digging himself a hole, they heard the unmistakable sounds of Arthur muttering to himself.

"How could you possibly have escaped from the dun-_geons_…"

Merlin and Uther shared their first, and only, look.

They had forgotten about Arthur - as it is surprisingly easy to do.

But he had not forgotten about them.

He now seemed satisfied with his ability to raise his voice at the end of a question, and skipped gleefully towards Merlin, hardly aware of his father's presence, determined to try and get him to make some decisions about their upcoming nuptials.

"So… Merlin… For the buffet: chicken or _beef_," he tried to ask, with a radiant smile.

Merlin turned to Uther, ready for his second near-death clash with the King in the space of ten minutes, only to find Uther smiling blankly down at them.

"Err… Arthur…" Merlin shot Arthur a look that the Prince totally failed to interpret. "Your father is here…"

"Of course, how foolish of me… Father: chicken or _beef_…"

Uther seemed to give this proposition serious consideration. "What about something for the vegetarians?"

But Arthur didn't respond, as he hadn't really heard Uther's comment. He was too busy dreamily observing the question mark that had escaped from his father's mouth as it flitted around the corner. "It's mine!" he exclaimed suddenly, barrelling off madly down the corridors after it.

Merlin turned nervously back to Uther, wondering how he might respond to discovering that he was soon to be his son-in-law.

Uther peered at Merlin curiously, and clapped him on the back. "Congratulations!"

With that, Uther snatched the poem back out of Merlin's grasp, and tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. "I won't tell anyone about this..." he gestured vaguely in the direction of both Merlin and the part of the castle from which the screams of Arthur in hot pursuit of a question mark could now be heard. "If you don't tell anyone about this," here he indicated the paper, before folding it away, and placing it back in his pocket; then strolling away again, humming a happy little tune to himself about sunshine.

**.**

Morgana shifted uncomfortably in her saddle, peering behind her and ascertaining that they were still being followed.

"Morgause!" she hissed, trying not to alert the troop of people trundling along behind them to the fact that she had noticed them stalking her.

"Morgause!"

"Yes, Ssssssister?" Morgause responded, in a bored tone of voice that suggested she knew that whatever Morgana was going to say would probably be profoundly idiotic.

"I don't mean to alarm you. I would never mean to alarm you, Morgause, because I love you… But I think we're being followed!"

"What?" Morgause whipped around, staring behind her madly, looking for a flash of Pendragon red that might indicate approaching knights, but saw nothing. She turned back around again, and rolled her eyes at her sister very pointedly. "Sister, we are _not_ being followed."

Morgana stole another look over her shoulder, peeking out beneath the rim of her favourite conspicuous, shimmering, green cloak. She saw the same angry bundle of people who had been plodding along behind them for quite some time now, continuing to plod with serious audacity. "Morgause; we are most definitely being followed!"

Morgause growled and stopped her horse.

Behind her, about three hundred men simultaneously stopped their horses in their tracks, looking a little confused about the unplanned break.

A few of their followers dismounted to relieve themselves in the nearby bushes.

Morgana flung her hand out madly towards the crowd of men who were sitting around, picking their noses and exchanging grunted pleasantries about the weather. "We are most definitely being followed! Can you not see them?"

Morgause regarded her sister with sheer disgust. "Sister, when you speak of our 'followers' you cannot, surely, be referring to these men, here?"

"Of course I am! They've been waddling along after us for the entire journey!"

"That, sister, is because they are our army."

Morgana paused to consider this. "What do we need an army for?"

"Oh for the love of Camelot!" Morgause exclaimed, nearly falling right off her horse in frustration.

Morgana gasped at her sister's drastic and unexpected switch of allegiance. "_For the love of Camelot…_" she repeated, sounding dazed, as though she had been clobbered around the head with a sack of potatoes. "How could you say such a thing?"

"Oh! It's just an expression! Quite a catchy one, at that…" Morgause admitted, looking a little sheepish.

Morgana was not entirely satisfied with this explanation, but she let it drop. She was not willing to let a mere slip of the tongue cause her to lose faith in her sister, the epitome of doing-no-wrong.

"Do you remember _any_ of the battle plans we discussed, Sister?"

It was Morgana's turn to look sheepish. "Um… I remember sitting at that table, in the cave…"

"The Crystal Cave?"

"Yeah… That's the one… I was listening, I promise… It's just that the walls were so pretty and sparkly, I might have got a little bit distracted by the crystals…"

All tones of mockery slipped away from Morgause's voice, and she leaned forwards anxiously in her saddle. "Did you see the future in the crystals, sister? Did you see a prophecy?"

Creases appeared across Morgana's forehead as she tried to frown (it was hard - she wasn't very good at it; she had a fairly limited register of facial expressions, and it did not extend to frowning). "No… No prophecy… I was looking at my hair… It looked very shiny in the light…"

Morgause resisted the urge to stab her sister. She'd done that to the last one (Elaine, was it?) and it hadn't gone down too well with Mother… "Are you telling me," Morgause began, straining to keep the loathing from creeping into her voice. "That you ignored our entire battle strategy in favour of admiring your _reflection_?"

"Umm…"

Morgause's scream was so unpleasant that even the author, who had dozed off, was woken up with a start, and went off in search off some Paracetamol to cure their rather sudden migraine.

Morgana flinched, closing her eyes and expecting to be struck down dead by Morgause's rage right then and there.

She wasn't.

This surprised Morgause as much as it surprised Morgana.

Some unconscious part of Morgause's brain had apparently managed to reason with her inner-homicidal-maniac, and persuade it that, after having killed off her only prospective boyfriend, obliterating her last remaining family member might not be a smart move.

So, instead of unleashing her wrath, Morgause inquired, in a falsely calm voice, "What of our battle strategy do you happen to recall, Sister?"

"Err… We're going to attack Camelot."

Morgause sighed. She really couldn't be bothered with getting any angrier. "We're going to attack with an army," she told Morgana, pointing at the assembled group of men, who waved and smiled in acknowledgement.

"With an army? How peculiar… Don't we usually try something a bit more low-key first?"

"Such as?"

"Oh… I don't know… Some half-hearted poisoning, a little bit of kidnapping, the odd magical bracelet, no?"

"Ah… I have a theory: we're going to not do all of that, because I think we both know that it isn't really dramatic enough to work, and I just can't be bothered with it anymore. When I seize the throne of Camelot, I want it to be in a blaze of glory, not with a silly little bracelet or the odd dead guard. We're just going to cut to the chase and have a battle. They're probably not expecting that…"

Morgana looked disheartened. "But… but it's more fun if we build up to the big plans. If we just charge in there, with all of our ammunition, how are we going to up our game next time?"

"Simple: there isn't going to be a next time. We're going to do it properly first time round."

Morgana snorted. "It'd better be a pretty good plan…"

Morgause had no intention of defending her battle strategies to a person who wouldn't know a good plan of attack if it strolled right up to her and bopped her on the nose.

They began to ride on.

Morgana took another look at the group of people behind her, continuing to shuffle along after them.

She squinted at row after row of men, all dressed in black, on black horses, all with beards and angry faces.

They all sort of looked the same…

She turned to Morgause.

Morgause sighed, recognising the look on Morgana's face that meant the witch was constructing a sentence. She pulled the reins on her horse to force it to stop again, wanting to get whatever it was that Morgana had to say out of the way now, while she still had some semblance of patience with which to tolerate her sister's stupidity.

There was a collective grumble from the group behind them as they ground to yet another halt.

"What is it, Ssssssister?"

"Do they… Do they all kind of look the same to you?"

"What _are_ you blathering on about, Sister?"

Morgana threw a wary look at their 'army', which was currently engaged in idle chatter and the scratching of behinds.

"They're all the same person."

Morgause frowned, and turned to the men.

It was, of course, undeniably true. Their army was quite literally the same OC copied and pasted out in clumsy rows behind them again and again and again.

Morgause, naturally, refused to accept this. "No they are not, Sister! Don't be so ridiculous!"

"Yes they are!" Morgana insisted, fed up with being treated like a moron.

"Yes we are!" the army of men jovially chorused in exactly the same voice behind them.

"I concur!" one of the men, with a voice at a slightly more squeaky pitch, declared.

The others turned to look at him in disgust.

"Except for him!" they chanted in unison.

**.**

Gaius was roused from his afternoon nap by a strange clattering sound outside of his chambers.

Rolling his eyes and tumbling to his feet, Gaius shuffled off to go and accost whichever annoying group of youngsters it was that had made the mistake of interrupting his nice dream about Merlin-chow.

He opened the door to his chambers, and greeted the sight of an assembly of Camelot's finest knights stabbing the sign to the physician's chambers with his usual raised eyebrow.

"And just what exactly do you think you are doing," he would have asked, if he could.

As it was, they got the gist of Gaius' sentence, and Leon was shoved forward from amongst the group to provide an explanation.

"We have been instructed to eliminate as much of the hidden punctuation as we can, in preparation for the oncoming attack."

"And so that has led you to begin stabbing my sign because…"

"Because of this," Leon announced, pointing to an errant apostrophe that declared the chambers to be the _physicians' chambers_, not the _physician's chambers_. "There is only one physician, and yet this sign implies that the chambers belong to multiple physicians…"

Gaius slapped the back of Leon's head with great vigour and called him a string of rude names.

"That has always been there, you moronic, pansy-ish, pathetic excuse for an extra. Honestly… Punish Merlin for his bad grammar, not my sign… On your way now, shoo," Gaius exclaimed, shoving them away with flapping hands.

As the knights were being shooed away down the corridor by a frustrated Gaius, they paused to observe Arthur scampering past them, determinedly pursuing a question mark that was now whizzing up the staircase above him.

That was unusual.

Arthur hurtled up the staircase after the question mark, hopping up about five steps at a time, and, when he caught sight of it stopping to catch a breath at the next floor, he seized his opportunity and pounced on it.

Arthur landed, face first, at a pair of familiar feet; cradling a question mark to his chest, muttering something incoherent about needing to _save it for something very special_.

Eventually, he allowed his eyes to travel upwards, to work out just who the feet belonged to.

_Merlin._

Merlin didn't bother to ask Arthur why he had landed at his feet talking to himself, because he was fairly certain that he didn't want to know.

Instead Merlin told Arthur, "I've been looking for Vegetables; I can't seem to find her anywhere in the castle."

Arthur (being Arthur) either didn't understand or didn't care that Merlin was covertly attempting to inquire as to the whereabouts of Vegetables, and so initiated his own topic of conversation.

"I have been considering our wedding arrangements; it all seems a little odd to me…"

"I wonder what it is about our wedding that seems '_odd_' to you: your father's blessing, the fact that I'm going to be 'Queen Merlin', or that the reason we're having to go through all of this is because of our biologically impossible unborn child, which neither of us has any memory of conceiving… I'm just curious."

Arthur shrugged. "Oh… It's not so much any of that… It's Guinevere…"

Merlin felt a little jealous in spite of himself. "What about Gwen…"

"Well… I'm feeling the really weird need to tell you that the only reason I want to marry her is to cover up for my feelings for you, which seems ridiculous. If I had wanted to hide my homosexuality, I'd have declared my love for a princess; I wouldn't go out of my way to cause difficulty for myself by falling in love with a maid…"

"You're in love with Gwen," Merlin would have exclaimed had he had an exclamation mark at his disposal.

"What?" Arthur's hard-earned question mark flittered away out of the window, and he punched a wall in frustration, which damaged his knuckles far more than it damaged the castle, unsurprisingly enough.

"You're in love with Gwen," Merlin repeated, resisting the urge to start crying.

"Of course I am not in love with Gwen. Do not be ridiculous. I harbour no romantic feelings for her whatsoever. The script-writers have their own agenda, and force me to pretend that I care about her. It's you I love, Merlin. It's always been you."

Merlin chose to ignore the steely, robotic tone that Arthur's voice had suddenly adopted; the fact that he had no idea who these 'script-writers' were; and the glazed look in the Prince's eyes that suggested he wasn't in control of his own speech, giving his lover a massive cuddle instead.

Gwen, who had been conveniently lurking around the corner, had heard enough of the exchange to be suitably hurt, and scurried off in a fit of tears.

As she made her speedy escape down the nearest stairwell, she ran straight into Lancelot, the master of 'popping back up' at just the wrong moment.

"Lancelot!" Gwen cried in surprise, dropping her armful of plotbunnies to the floor, and dabbing at her wet eyes with her sleeve. "You're back…"

"!:^%$)('|\Gwen!-^&~#/?.," he exclaimed, spewing a mouthful of punctuation out from his bulging cheeks, spitting exclamation marks and colons in her face. "*-;I've joined the punctuation resistance[-+" he explained, wiping the last few hyphens off his chin.

"Yes… I can see that."

**.**

"My love for you stretches from the very tips of the tops of the mountains to the squiggly-wiggly waves of the sea; it is as young and fresh as a baby, but will last to be as old and wrinkly as Gaius; it will survive battles and sieges and being pelted with rotten fruit."

Merlin snuggled closer into Arthur's chest, trying to ignore whatever it was he was saying, so that he wouldn't be tempted to laugh at it.

"My love is as real as a punch on the nose, as strong as a scary monster, as honest as a person who doesn't like to tell lies."

Merlin was a little disappointed. He had anticipated the moment when Arthur revealed his true feelings to be touching and beautiful, not childish and idiotic.

_Hang on a minute._

_No he hadn't._

Merlin stiffened against Arthur, who was now comparing the permanence of his love to Gaius' ever-raised eyebrow.

Merlin hadn't given any thought to Arthur revealing his true feelings to him at all, for the very good reason that he knew Arthur didn't have any feelings for him, nor he for Arthur…

_Oh dear._

Merlin began trying to extricate himself, as Arthur recited his _Ode to Merlin's Ears_ (because apparently he'd been taking writing lessons from Vegetables too; great).

"These flappy detectors of sound upon either side of your noggin…"

Merlin guessed that exposing Arthur to a thesaurus had not been a particularly wise move on Vegetables' part.

Thankfully, before Arthur could continue with his crime against rhyme, his next sentence was cut short by the appearance of an uninvited full stop.

The obnoxious little black dot stood defiantly before Arthur, not seeming to be particularly impressed by his declaration of affections.

"How rude! And just what do you think you are doing, you nasty little creature? I will have you know that I was midway through making a rather important speech!" Arthur huffed at it, being supplied with punctuation directly from the pocket of the author, who was apparently just as affronted by this rude intrusion as the Crown Prince of Camelot.

Merlin removed Arthur's arms from his waist so that the Prince was free to flap them around as he rapidly got angrier, and the warlock slowly backed away down the corridor.

Whistling to himself, Merlin returned to his original search for Vegetables, wondering where on earth she could possibly have got to…

In the distance, he heard the clattering of a gauntlet being thrown to the ground and a bellow of: "I challenge you to a duel, Sir!"

**.**

Vegetables had been on her way to go and feedback to Uther on the haiku that he had shoved under her door at some ungodly hour of the previous night, when she had been accosted by one Sir Gwaine, looking for a distraction after having learnt of what a 'bath' was, and not being so keen on having one (in spite of the fact that he was still finding pieces of fruit in various orifices), unless, of course, she agreed to administer it…

That had earned him a tight slap to the face.

"Fair enough," Gwaine had muttered, rubbing his cheek, his ever-boyish grin still resolutely in place.

From there, he had managed to use his strange, drunken logic to persuade her that it was actually incredibly rude of her to have taken advantage of their hospitality, and allowed them to buy drinks for her, without attempting to return the favour.

"I thought that you knights were all about gallantry; treating women as ladies and such?" she pointed out; as he linked arms with her and began skipping her merrily off towards the tavern.

"I thought you modern women were all about independence and doing everything for yourselves?"

That had settled that.

That was how Vegetables, a polite young lady who had always prided herself on not being much of a drinker, had found herself amidst a jostling crowd of rowdy knights for the second time that week.

Gwaine sauntered over, slammed two glasses of ale down on the table, tried to sit on the bench beside her and promptly fell on the floor.

He laughed to himself as though it were the funniest thing to have ever happened ever, and then rubbed his rather sore rear end as he straightened up and tried to look into Vegetables' eyes in order to ask her a question (he was actually looking into her nostrils, but she appreciated the gesture nonetheless).

"So… Are you going to teach us a song, then?"

"Excuse me?"

"I asked you if you were going to teach us a song. After all, we taught you one. It's only polite."

Vegetables paused, recalling a few lines of _Matilda! _"I'm not sure I know anything quite as vulgar as that…"

Gwaine nearly spat his mouthful of alcohol in her face (but didn't: that would have been a waste of a good drink). "You think _that's_ vulgar? You've led a sheltered life…"

Vegetables was about to protest, when a slightly wicked thought occurred to her, causing her to grin.

"I might have a song to teach you…"

"Oh, really?"

Vegetables bit her lip, surveying the honourable knights of Camelot assembled around her; was this really a good idea?

But as the words of the song pinged to life insistently in her mind, she found that the temptation was too strong to resist.

"Yeah… I do. It's about you, actually. It's called: _The Knights of Camelot_."

Vegetables would never forget the sight of the knights of Camelot prancing around over the tavern's various surfaces, loudly chanting the words to that famous _Monty Python_ song…

_We're Knights of the Round Table,  
We dance when e'er we're able,  
We do routines and chorus scenes  
With footwork impeccable.  
We dine well here in Camelot,  
We eat ham and jam and spam a lot.  
We're Knights of the Round Table,  
Our shows are formidable, but many times, we're given rhymes  
That are quite unsingable.  
We're Opera mad in Camelot,  
We sing from the diaphragm a looooooot.  
In war we're tough and able,  
Quite indefatigable,  
Between our quests we sequin vests,  
And impersonate Clark Gable.  
It's a busy life in Camelot,  
I have to push the pram a lot._

**.**

Merlin did his third circuit of the castle, before reaching Vegetables' empty chambers once again. He found he had to stop, resting his hands on his knees as he struggled for breath.

He had not realised how much more tiring all of this moving around was when you were carrying the weight of a second person in your belly…

The warlock winced, trying to rub away the tension in the small of his back, letting out gentle 'oomphing' noises.

Merlin straightened up, and was about to hobble past a nondescript alcove, when he noticed a strange shadow lurking in it.

Tiptoeing closer, Merlin ascertained that this shadow was in fact the outline of one Paul, the OC, who he had, as a matter of fact, not seen around for a while.

Merlin reached out to poke Paul, who was standing eerily still, eyes staring off blankly into the ether, when his hand was swiped away rather abruptly by another.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," advised the owner of this hand, who Merlin now realised he recognised.

"M. Diane - what's wrong with…"

"He's shut down."

Merlin didn't seem to understand.

She sighed, leaning against the wall. "He's an OC. If you don't use them for a while, they just sort of 'switch off', go into hibernation… you know?"

Merlin frowned suspiciously at her. "You have a question mark…"

"Oh… Didn't Vegetables tell you about that?"

"I've actually been looking for her to ask her about…"

"Yeah - we've had to start sneaking punctuation in from outside sources, although I prefer to call it 'importing'. All we've done is strip a few boring old textbooks, dictionaries… That sort of thing. No one will notice. Besides, we need it far more."

Merlin didn't understand, but nodded anyway.

"Uther was infuriated when he found out about the punctuation purge; he thought he wouldn't be able to finish his autobiographical novel. It's lucky the CPR were here to supply him, otherwise you could have had a civil war on your hands…"

"The '_CPR_' being…"

"Being the Camelot Punctuation Resistance. Haven't you heard of it?"

Merlin was spared from admitting his ignorance by the sudden appearance of Arrow'Nash. He offered her a friendly smile, which she seemed confused by, as if she didn't remember who he was.

"Hi!" she thrust a hand out for him to shake. "I'm… Err…"

"Arrow'Nash!" M. Diane exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "For heaven's sake: You're Arrow'Nash!"

"Right!" she squeaked, giving Merlin an impromptu hug and then skipping off down the corridor in search of a butterfly.

Merlin blinked.

_These people were certainly very unusual…_

Just as he was thinking this, a person he recognised to be ringo'simaginarycat popped up from inside of Vegetables' room. At least, Merlin thought that was who it was. ringo'simaginarycat had apparently tired of being indescribable, and now had white hair, purple eyes and was roughly the height of a ballerina, and the approximate weight of a squash.

How odd.

Merlin decided not to comment on it, though.

"Hold on… I was in that room a second ago and you definitely weren't in there then…" Merlin sounded very suspicious, as he looked between the two people in front of him. "Look: I don't mean to be rude, but I don't understand just where exactly it is that you people are coming from."

"Ah… well…" ringo'simaginarycat shuffled awkwardly on the spot, looking to M. Diane for support.

Unfortunately, she had been distracted by the sight of a passing tilde.

She reached out to smack the wretched thing. "Horrible excuse for a piece of punctuation! When did you things even start appearing in writing, anyway?"

The tilde seemed extremely surprised, and a little affronted by this unwarranted attack; it arched its back and sneered at her. "Actually, we tildes are a grapheme that first appeared in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, and then later in Medieval Latin documents."

M. Diane seemed unimpressed by the snobbish tilde: "You got all of that straight off _Wikipedia_, didn't you?"

The tilde scowled at her and stormed off.

She shook her head. "Sorry, Merlin. You were saying?"

"I wanted to know where it is that you're all coming from…"

ringo'simaginarycat bounced helpfully into the conversation. "Oh! That's easy! We've been coming in through the plot holes!"

"_You've been coming in through the plot holes_…" Merlin echoed, disbelief practically dripping from his voice.

"Yeah! Haven't you noticed them?"

M. Diane observed Merlin's baffled expression. "I don't think he knows what we're talking about."

She led them a little further down the corridor, to a point in the wall where the very seams of the story had literally been ripped apart by some inconsistency.

Upon peering inside this crack in the castle, Merlin found himself confronted with a great, gaping, black abyss of words, drifting around meaninglessly.

"That's a plot hole," ringo'simaginarycat told him, a little unnecessarily.

The closer Merlin got to the plot hole, the more he found he could actually hear the stone of the walls at its edges disintegrating, and the stronger the sense of dread in the pit of his stomach became.

There was absolutely no way whatsoever that this was going to end well.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Do you remember me apologising for the length of last chapter? Yeah, well... This one's even longer. :S Sorry. It took me ages to write, because I kept getting distracted (I'm very easily distracted) and then I went away... So I'm sorry for the delay, but it's here now! Put down your Sporks of DOOM! (You know who you are.) I know my author's notes are always stupidly long, but that's because I always have to give people credit and stuff. Here I go with the doing that... Gwen bumping into people being a fanfic cliche was pointed out to me by Avi Muin; the flinging of punctuation into other people's speech with a slingshot was completely and totally M. Diane's idea, I just rolled with it; and Gwaine leading a drunken conga line is the intellectual property of Nicicia. I think I have covered everything, but please, if you recognise a suggestion of yours that you have left me in a review in this chapter, do not sit in silence (you don't have to live in fear either)! Do something about it! Mention it. I am not deliberately plagiarising, I'm just sleep-deprived. A few more quick notes ('quick' here being a relative term, as in quicker than a dying snail, but only just) M. Diane: Ack! No! My 'Um..' Was not an 'Um...' of confusion, rather an 'Um...' of thoughtfulness - I was pondering my answer while typing. I wish you could communicate inflections through this thing! It would solve these problems! Just, please, do not feel afraid to ask me any questions you like. :) Except for my pin number. Asking that is socially unaccpetable. To all those of you who have asked to be in the story/haven't asked but are wondering when I'm gonna make good on my marker and put you all in it... It's coming, I promise. One of the two newcomers this chapters found her own plot hole, and the other one is an absolutely hardcore reviewer who deserved a reward. But wouldn't you rather it took time to get in the story, and that the story stayed at the same high standard of hilarity, than that you all randomly rocked up in a massive glomp, and it lost all sense of plot? No? *Puts hands up to cover face* Stop throwing things at me! I will rectify the situation soon, I promise. Until then... Kick back, relax, enjoy the madness... And possibly review? Because I love you reviewers. I love you all. Whether or not you want my unconditional love, you have it. Just you think about that. **

Uther Pendragon was booted off his seat and sent hurtling through the air above the unimpressed courtiers for the seventeenth time that morning.

They rolled their eyes at the King as he became impaled on a coat of arms dangling from the wall.

"For the love of Camelot!" he exclaimed, trying to recollect some semblance of dignity in spite of the fact that his trousers had slipped down at some point during his ungraceful ascent, and so now his undergarments were available for the entire council to view. "What is going on?"

Nobody had an answer to that.

A few of the knights (whose names nobody ever bothers to learn, owing to the shortness of their lifespans) were now poking him with spears in an attempt to get him down from his current, rather precarious, position.

"Ouch!" Uther yelped, as the point of one of the spears probed some of his more private areas.

Eventually, prodding at the rear end of their monarch proved successful, and the knights watched as he fell to the floor with an almighty thud.

Uther scowled up at the incompetent pair and gave the signal to have them beheaded for their idiocy.

As the knights were dragged away to meet their fate (and all in the hall felt gratified that they had not bothered to learn their names - _what a waste of effort that would have been!_) Uther righted himself, rubbed his now-tender behind, and ordered the nearest unnamed knight to "Send for Vegetables!"

The knight nodded, skipped a few paces along and repeated the command to another knight.

"_Send for Vegetables!"_

Throughout the corridors and the stairwells of the castle the words rang, as they were passed from knight to knight.

"_Send for Vegetables!"_

The announcement made its way across the drawbridge and into the city, where the citizens stood by in awe as a procession of knights appeared from nowhere in particular, passing the declaration along in great, booming voices.

"_Send for Vegetables!"_

They found her eventually.

She was outside the tavern.

She seemed a little dumbstruck.

She was trying to pull Sir Gwaine out of a barrel of Meade, which he had been wedged in upside down after unwisely deciding to rewrite the lyrics to Monty Python's _Brave Sir Robin Ran Away_ to fit a certain Sir Percival, who - once again - had not been invited to the knights' party, and, upon hearing Gwaine declare, _"When danger reared its ugly head he bravely turned his tail and fled, Yes brave Sir Percy turned about and gallantly he chickened out!"_ had taken the whole assault on his character rather personally and decided to teach Sir Gwaine a lesson about 'manners'.

Vegetables rolled her eyes and heaved once again on Gwaine's ankle.

Gwaine gurgled something incoherent about diphthongs, which echoed eerily around the barrel his entire torso was encased in.

"I give up! That's the last time I teach you the words to anything!" she exclaimed, dropping his calf to the ground with such force that the barrel toppled over and began to roll away down the slight slope into Camelot's lower town.

She tilted her head to the side, observing Camelot's citizens as they parted to make way for the giggling barrel with legs that was trundling past them.

She would deal with that later.

She crossed her arms and turned to face the assembly of Camelot's 'finest' knights, tapping her foot expectantly.

They shifted uncomfortably on the spot and shared awkward glances, not particularly enjoying being scrutinised to quite such a degree.

One of them coughed and announced, in a nervous voice, "Send for Vegetables!"

She raised an eyebrow in a perfect imitation of Gaius.

This had better be good.

**.**

"Uther?" Vegetables queried, warily approaching the King, eyeing him with great cautiousness.

"Ah! Vegetables… I am sorry if the manner in which you were summoned upset you, but I thought it would be… errm…" Uther coughed awkwardly, finishing his sentence far more quietly than he had begun it. "I thought it would be cool."

Vegetables inclined her head. "That's nice, Uther… But it's not really what I'm worried about. How long have you been sitting on that thing?"

"My throne? Since the day of my coronation, I suppose… Why?"

"Uther…" she warned, gesturing for him to stand. "That's not a _throne_. That's a _thrown_."

As if to illustrate her point, Uther was once again _thrown_ into the air from his comfortable perch, soaring above the heads of the courtiers and colliding with the ceiling.

Vegetables shook her head. "How many times must I tell you, Uther? Misused homophones are _dangerous_!"

Uther groaned something inaudible in response.

**.**

A single piece of parchment landed on Morgause's shoulder and she snatched it up, turning to scowl at Morgana.

"Ssssssister!" she hissed, in a tone of voice that suggested that if she read the paper, and it did turn out to be another one of Morgana's stupid '_Kick Me' _notes, there would be hell to pay.

Morgana shrugged at her sister. She didn't understand why Morgause was so resistant to the idea of a practical joke; it had always been such a laugh to play them on Arthur… She didn't see why she and Morgause couldn't abandon all of this usurping Camelot lark and just prank Arthur _together_ - it would be so much _fun_!

Morgause frowned at the writing in front of her, trying to make sense of it.

"What, in the name of all things conniving, is an _author's note_?" she demanded, her scowl deepening.

Morgana shrugged.

"I am usually baffled by your attempts at humour, Sister… But this one is even more ridiculous than normal! I cannot see how even _you_ could find this amusing. It makes no sense!"

"I didn't write that note…"

"Oh? Of course you didn't. And I suppose your name also isn't _Morgana_?"

"You know my name? I don't think you've ever said my name before…" Morgana's eyes swelled with tears, pride and love as she regarded her dear (fuming) sister.

"I know that you wrote this note, Sister. I can detect a _lie_. I wasn't raised by the high priestesses of the Old Religion for nothing!"

Morgana paused, struggling to get the meaning of the sentence because of the number of negatives. "Does that mean that you were raised by them, or that you weren't?"

As usual, Morgause ignored her sister. "What does this _mean_? _'Hi guys. I've been really rushed this week, still struggling with a stupid virus (at least I've got antiviral software), and so I can't email my beta. The spelling's terrible. Sorry. Will you please stop flaming me?'_ I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION! WHAT IS THIS '_FLAMING_'? IS IT SOME KIND OF TORTURE? Could we use it?"

Morgana appeared perplexed. "Err…"

"Will you at least explain the joke? I _hate_ not being in on a joke."

"Morgause, I _didn't_ write that note. I swear!" Morgana insisted, getting increasingly worked-up. "I swear by the traitor's code: _Cross my heart and hope to lie_. I didn't do it!"

"Oh! I don't care!" Morgause huffed, screwing the note up and tossing it to the floor, allowing it to be trampled beneath the hooves of her horse.

There was a muffled protestation from behind them.

Morgause span around in her saddle. "Who was that?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes at her army.

"Me!"

"Who is '_me'_?"

"ME!"

Morgause rolled her eyes, and settled for simply pointing at random soldiers. "You?"

"No, Miss Morgause. Twasn't Terrence."

"You?"

"No, Miss Morgause. Twasn't Terrence."

"You?"

"No, Miss Morgause. Twasn't Terrence."

"Are you _all _called Terrence?"

"Yes m'am!" they chorused.

"Except for me!" decreed a voice that was distinctly more nasal than any of the others. "My name is Slartibartfast, and I fear I may have strayed into the wrong fandom…"

"Was it you who dared to question me?" she asked him, her heavily lined eyes delivering a serious evil glare.

"Well… Yes… But you were littering!"

Morgause snarled viciously at no one in particular. "We will never get to Camelot at this rate! You are all useless! I have a ssssssister with the intellectual capabilities of a loaf of bread, a disgruntled ecologist with an unpronounceable name and an army of Terrences!" She tossed her blonde locks over her shoulder in an arrogant fashion and added, "I am the only capable person here!"

She glared dramatically into the distance for longer than was strictly necessary, before forming a wicked plan. "I shall send a draught to Camelot!"

She threw her hands in front of her and her eyes flashed gold, but she didn't utter a spell, presumably because the author was lazy and couldn't be bothered to Google '_Old English Translator_'.

"Morgause?" Morgana asked very timidly, as they trotted along.

"What, Sister?"

"Um… Did you mean to say _draught_?"

"What are you babbling about?"

"You sent a _draught_ to Camelot… I assumed you meant to send a _drought_… But you didn't - you said _draught_… I'm not trying to question it… err… If that was your intention; I just wanted to check…"

Morgause bit her tongue, resisting the urge to scream. "Of course that was what I intended. Are you implying that I could possibly be in any way flawed? I AM FLAWLESS! I AM PRACTICALLY PERFECT IN EVERY WAY!"

Morgana nodded, resolving to never ever question her sister again.

Morgause tugged on the rains of her horse, and was then infuriated when, instead of finding herself being propelled further forwards, she was met by a sudden downpour of precipitation.

Morgana couldn't help but titter a little at the irony. "Well… At least you can direct the rain with_ some _accuracy…"

**.**

Arthur bounded into the physician's chambers with all of his usual grace and elegance.

"mer_lin_" he attempted to query, stumbling around the space in his quest for his betrothed. "mer_lin_ gai_us_ mer_lin_"

With an exasperated sigh, the physician and his assistant popped up from inside a nearby grain barrel, nearly giving Arthur a heart attack.

"what were you doing in _there_" he squeaked, clutching at his chest in shock.

Merlin rolled his eyes and shook some of the stray grains of grain from amid his glossy locks. "Never you mind. Were you looking for me?"

"yes ive been calling your name havent _i_"

"I don't think you've been calling anybody's name at all, _Arthur_. A _name_ has a capital letter at the beginning, like all _proper nouns_. Honestly… I know that, and I'm a servant."

Arthur squirmed awkwardly. "its not that i don't know its just that i cant find any anywhere where are you getting your punctuation from any_way_"

"Vegetables gave it to me…"

"well its about time you learn to share"

"Oh! You're one to talk!"

"give it to me"

"No!"

"merlin give it to me"

"No!" Merlin insisted, sticking out his tongue and insolently folding his arms across his chest.

"i am warning you merlin i am highly trained in the art of combat and i will extract those commas from you forcibly if i have to"

"Sire," Gaius warned Arthur, holding up a cautionary hand. "I'm afraid you are going to have to slow down your speech. Without the interruption of any kind of punctuation all of your words are running together and I can't tell where one sentence ends and another begins."

"its not my fault the only thing ive got left is quotation marks and im even running out of those Arthur insisted, folding his arms across his chest.

Gaius and Merlin shared a worried look.

It appeared that Arthur had finally exhausted his entire supply of quotation marks and so now, with no way of ending his speech, was being forced to recite the entire narrative of the story as it unfolded before them.

Gaius raised an eyebrow at Merlin, trying to ignore the fact that every single action he did was now being described by Arthur in a manner somewhat reminiscent of a sports commentator.

"Come on Merlin," Gaius urged, holding out his hand as if trying to coax a biscuit away from a sullen child, ignoring the fact that his words were being echoed by Arthur. "I think you can afford to spare a couple of quotation marks for a friend."

"He's not my friend! He's my slave-driver!"

"_Come on_, Merlin…"

"No! I don't want to!"

"This isn't about what you want, Merlin. Or what I want. This is about something bigger than you or I," Gaius took a deep breath, not quite believing that he was still able to spout such rubbish after all these years out of practise. "This is about your _destiny_."

The word struck a chord within Merlin. His blue eyes were suddenly lit up with flecks of gold, and a look of purposeful determination settled itself on his face. He straightened up his back and smiled cockily to himself. "You are right, Gaius. I AM EMRYS!"

With that, Merlin pulled his punctuation first aid kit from his satchel, and set about repairing Arthur's fractured speech.

It was a long and arduous task, and as Merlin was doing it, Gaius started wondering to himself whether he ought to be using this cryptic '_destiny_' stuff to his advantage more often. Perhaps he might finally be able to persuade Merlin to do the washing up of a Tuesday evening…

When Arthur was finally in control of his speech once again, he eyed Merlin suspiciously. "Who is _Emrys_?"

Merlin smiled sweetly and ruffled Arthur's blonde hair. "Nothing to worry your pretty little head about. Did you come looking for us for a reason, or did you just miss me?"

Arthur scowled, and then proceeded to deploy as much of his newfound punctuation as possible. "Well…! _Actually_; I wanted to ask you about finalising a guest list, and then I realised that I wasn't sure which side of the Church to put Gaius on."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean what do I mean? I've known Gaius all my life; he's like family to me. But… he _is_ your family. So, should he be on your side of the Church or mine?"

Merlin frowned. "Gaius isn't my family."

"Isn't he? I thought he was your uncle?"

The baffled warlock shook his head very slowly.

"Oh," Arthur chewed his lip. "Well… How the heck are you two related then?"

Gaius turned to regard Merlin. "I thought you were my nephew…"

"I most certainly am not!"

"Are you sure?"

"Very sure! My mother was an only child - I DON'T HAVE AN UNCLE!"

"Hmm… Curious. You're right, Hunith isn't my sister, that hadn't occurred to me before…Yesterday I was under the impression that you were my nephew, but I'm not sure if my beliefs had any grounding in fact…" and then, as if a switch had been flicked behind the old man's eyes, a light seemed to appear in his head. "The author must have made a mistake…"

As Gaius spoke these fateful words, there was a sound much like the ripping of a pair of trousers, and a great, gaping gap appeared in the floor of the physician's chambers.

The three inhabitants of the room peered into the vortex, and were met by the rather sudden appearance of an indescribable, scowling face.

"It's about time!" she huffed at them, clinging onto the edges of the cold stone floor for dear life. "Oh… Please… Don't feel as if you ought to help me. I've only been dangling here waiting for a plot hole to open up for the best part of a week... You take your time! Gallantry be damned!"

Arthur's princely instincts took over, and he grabbed hold of the girl by wrapping his arms around her torso and hauling her up into the story.

Upon being plopped down on the floor, she flattened out her garments, and proceeded to size up the people before her.

It was at this moment that she noticed one of those people was Merlin.

"Merlin!" she squealed, promptly flinging her arms about his neck and sending the pair of them crashing into a waiting shelf of potions. "I don't normally approve of public displays of affection, but I have missed you, my boyfriend!"

Merlin wasn't sure what the appropriate response to a statement of this kind was, so he merely allowed the girl to sit on top of him for a while as he scrutinised her face. There was something familiar about her, something that sent a shiver down his spine…

Unfortunately, the rather unromantic reunion was cut short by a sword being pointed sharply into the back of this intruder.

"I advise you to disentangle yourself from my fiancé immediately," Arthur ordered.

On balance, she clearly seemed to think that it was best to do as she was told.

Arthur gathered Merlin up off the floor and gripped him closely at his side (much to the disgruntlement of said warlock, whose pathetic fidgeting went unnoticed by his captor) and he poked his sword at the girl in front of them.

"Just who do you think you are?" he demanded of her, trying to look as intimidating as it is possible to when you are cuddling a reluctant dragon lord.

"I am Kitty O, fanfictioner extraordinaire. Who do _you_ think _you_ are, to be molesting my boyfriend?"

"Think? I don't need to _think_!"

"Well that's convenient," Merlin muttered. "Because you're not very good at it."

Arthur ignored this interruption, and continued on as if nothing had happened. "I am Arthur Pendragon, Crown Prince of Camelot! Everyone in _Albion_ knows that!"

"Right…" Kitty O nodded. "Why have you got a black eye?"

"Because the full stop beat me in a duel," Arthur muttered bashfully.

Kitty O pretended that she understood what he was talking about. "And why are you hugging Merlin?"

"Because he is the keeper of the key to my heart! The food of my soul! The carrier of my unborn child!"

"Technically only one of those things is true," Merlin interjected in a hoarse voice, struggling to breathe because of the death grip Arthur currently had around his neck. "Arthur… Would you let go of me, you stupid oaf? I can't breathe!"

"No, Merlin. I won't let you go. I will never let you go."

Kitty O turned to scowl at Gaius (because he was snickering and she thought that he ought to at least be attempting to take the situation seriously). "Would someone - not you, Arthur, I've had about all I can take of your explanations - explain what's going on?"

"Well, my dear," Gaius sat down on the bench, because he had decided that now would be as good a time as any to tell a story. "It all started a few weeks ago. I was sitting in my chambers, working on a potion for Sir Leon's boils - don't tell him I told you that - when in storms Merlin, in a dress, ranting and raving about being in love with Arthur…"

"I was _not _ranting and raving…"

"It's alright my love; you do not need to be ashamed of our feelings. I, too, am experiencing the need to shout about my desires from the rooftops!"

Merlin swatted Arthur's head away from his neck to prevent nuzzling, as Kitty O resisted the urge to wretch. "Arthur!" Merlin reprimanded. "Sod off!"

"What I'm more concerned about," Kitty O began, in a wary tone of voice, "Is the fact that you were wearing a dress…"

"It would have been inappropriate for me to have been wearing anything else, ladies in medieval times _never_ wear trousers," Merlin explained.

"But… You're not a lady..." Kitty O shook her head, struggling to follow what she was sure barely passed as a conversation. "And anyway, Morgana's always wearing trousers…"

"That's because Morgana's a hussy!" Arthur announced.

"If you youngsters are quite finished, I believe we might return to that age-old tradition of storytelling in which _I_ do the talking and _you_ do the listening?"

They all bowed their heads shamefully, and Gaius continued.

"Yes… Well… A number of weeks previously Merlin and Arthur had had a similar altercation, and after several rather graphic conversations with sweet, little Gwen, I decided I would have to monitor the problem…"

"You did no such thing!" Merlin insisted indignantly. "You became addicted to pacman and unleashed a plotbunny from your laptop!"

"The details are irrelevant," Gaius told them, waving Merlin's concerns away with his hand. "What is important for you to know, Kitty O, is that we have deduced that Camelot is under the control of a mysterious author, and so we have had to rely on the help of you and your friends in covertly smuggling punctuation back into Camelot after this eejit," here he smacked the back of Arthur's head for emphasis, "decided to start executing it. Do you see now?"

Of course, Kitty O did not see.

If anything, she was now more confused than she had been before she had asked for an explanation, and she was beginning to wish she had never agreed to come along and help out anyway…

But then one look into the tortured blue eyes of Merlin as he struggled to fight his way out of Arthur's arms, and Kitty O was once again sure that she had made the right decision, even though she had no idea what they were talking about.

She simply nodded and smiled. It was alright; she would find Vegetables later and just ask her what on earth was going on.

"Marvellous!" Gaius clapped his hands together gleefully, and was about to toddle off, when the sound of Merlin's body dropping to the floor stopped him in his tracks.

"I think I might have cut off his air supply," Arthur admitted with a sheepish shrug, as Kitty O rushed to aid her unconscious beau.

With a look on his face that suggested something important had only just occurred to him, Arthur turned to Gaius, his sword poised to be pointed threateningly if necessary. If Gaius wasn't more than a little concerned about being run through, he would probably have muttered something along the lines of, _"Here we go again…"_

"Did you just confess to being the person who unleashed these monstrous rabbits into our midst?" Arthur bellowed in his most formidable tone of voice.

"Err…" Gaius shrugged, and offered Arthur is best impression of Merlin's apologetic grin (because it seemed to work for him). "Mayhaps…"

Kitty O looked up from cradling a semi-conscious Merlin in her arms, and ascertained that she probably ought to distract Arthur. "Ooh! Look!" she squealed, pointing vaguely in the direction of the corridor. "Sorcerer!"

"Where?" Arthur spun around, bobbing about dementedly like a person trying to grab hold of their own shadow.

"Err… There!" Kitty O reiterated, pointing with a bit more vigour this time.

"Fear not gentle lady, for I shall protect you!" Arthur announced, and bounded off down the corridors, swishing his sword about energetically.

Gaius turned to Kitty O and raised his eyebrows at her, as Merlin slowly regained consciousness in her lap. "Oh, bravo…" the physician conceded with a grin. "I shall have to remember that one… Do you think it works on Uther, too?"

Kitty O shrugged. "Probably. Like father like son, and all that…"

"Gaius!" Merlin exclaimed, turning to his mentor with a look of sheer wonderment on his face. "Look! Your eyebrows… they have returned! When did that happen?"

The two of them paused, trying to recollect just when exactly it had been that Gaius' most treasured facial feature had re-appeared.

"I honestly don't know," Gaius confessed. "They've just sort of… popped up. I can't think of any scientific reason for their regrowth…"

"It's almost as if your eyebrows just forgot that they weren't supposed to be there," Merlin mused, scratching his chin.

"Or perhaps the author forgot that his eyebrows weren't supposed to be there," Kitty O pointed out, wanting to reprimand Merlin for being so daft as to suggest eyebrows could have personalities, but not being able to on account of his extreme cuteness.

Before Merlin could suggest the next not-so-intelligent thing on his mind, there was a strange squeaking sound, and a long crack appeared in one of the windows.

Everybody in the room frowned at the crack.

The crack didn't appear to care.

It stretched itself along the glass of the window, making little splintering sounds as it shattered tiny fragments and sent them clattering to the floor, and eventually the crack made a full circle, and met itself where it had begun.

At that point, a circle of glass roughly the size of a large rucksack fell away from the window, and - instead of revealing Gaius' view of the lower town - there sat in front of them a big, black void of emptiness.

And a girl.

A girl with a pen knife in her hand and a laptop tucked securely under her arm.

"Hi!" she waved cheerily at them, hopping through the window and ripping her clothes on the sharp glass (not that she seemed to notice - so no one else pointed it out to her). "Sorry about that…" she murmured, indicating the shimmering puddle of broken glass at her feet. "But it wasn't really much of a plot hole for me to get through… I mean, eyebrows, seriously? I thought I could have trusted you to do better than that, Kitty O!"

Kitty O raised her hands in surrender (forgetting that she'd been holding up Merlin's head, which now smacked back down to the floor). "I'm sorry! But I got a bit distracted…"

Merlin blinked up at the cheerful girl with her pointy weaponry and blank, indescribable features (something he was beginning to get used to) and simply groaned, "Mum?"

Kitty O frowned. "I think he might have a mild concussion…"

"My dear..." Gaius interrupted, edging towards this new girl with a wolfish glint in his eyes. "I am terribly sorry to trouble you… But I was wondering if I might borrow your laptop?"

"Hmm? What? How does he know what a laptop is?" she turned to roll her eyes at Kitty O. "What did you do?"

"Me? I didn't do anything! They were already like this when I got here, I swear!"

"I really am sorry to be a bother but I just need to see if I've been outbid…"

"Oh… alright… I don't see why not…" she handed the laptop over to Gaius, who giggled with delight like a small child and scurried off to the corner.

Kitty O sighed. "There is no way that's going to end well…"

"New high score! Take that banana-lover258! You've been pwned!" Gaius howled from the corner.

Kitty O shot the other girl her patented '_I-told-you-so_' look.

"Mum…?" Merlin muttered again from the corner, eyeing this new girl with a look of doey-eyed adoration that made Kitty O quite profoundly jealous.

"No, Merlin. I'm not your mother… My name is Whirlwind421," she told him, heaving the warlock to his feet and smiling fondly. "You _are_ heavy… Are you _pregnant_?" she asked, with a look of sheer disbelief aimed at Merlin, and an accusatory glare aimed in the direction of Kitty O.

"Don't look at me! I didn't do it!" she insisted, fed up of being blamed for things that quite obviously weren't her fault.

"What else is going on around here that I should know about?" Whirlwind421 asked, trying not to laugh at Merlin, who had fallen asleep in an adorable fashion on her shoulder and was actually dribbling just a little.

"Well… I think Arthur's been executing punctuation… Is that all sorted out now, Gaius?"

Gaius reluctantly looked up from the screen of his newly-acquired laptop. "Mmm… Yeah… Waffles…"

"Gaius!"

"Oh… He's probably got bored of it by now. Arthur has a very short attention span, and persecuting things takes a lot of effort. You know what he's like: wave something shiny under his nose and he'll forget all about his battle strategy… I think it's highly unlikely that he can be bothered with it any longer…"

Just then, an exceptionally chilly breeze blew past them down the corridor, causing them all to shiver.

**.**

Gwen was happily strolling along the streets of Camelot, humming to herself, thinking about bunnies and flowers, and generally minding her own business, when someone bumped into her.

"Oh, Gwen! How clumsy of me, I'm sorry!" the guard muttered, a bashful look on his face.

Gwen smiled at the guard, Richard: that was his name, and curtsied awkwardly. "It's quite alright! The fault was entirely mine!"

And so she continued to stroll.

A few paces further down the street and the same thing happened again.

This time it was friendly old Mrs Jones, from just across the street. She had leant Gwen some logs for her fire last winter when it had been particularly cold… A very nice little old lady… But her shoulders were _terribly_ pointy! And it did _hurt_ when they were rammed into your sides like that!

But Gwen simply stuttered and stammered and apologised and backed away, even though it was clearly Mrs Jones who hadn't been looking where she had been going.

And Gwen strolled on.

Then little Lady Alice, Sir Leon's niece, skipped straight into her shins, and any other person would probably have smacked the child right then and there whilst screaming dementedly about how _nobody _ever looked where they were going anymore… But not Gwen.

She smiled demurely, patted the child on the head and continued on with her strolling undeterred.

Gwen was quite used to people bumping in to her.

She wasn't sure when it had started, or why, for that matter. She had a sneaking suspicion that it might have been a joke of Merlin's (she never did quite understand his humour - she just laughed because it seemed appropriate) but she didn't particularly care.

Humming happily to herself, Gwen skipped up the stairs of the castle, thinking about flowers and sunshine, and not really looking where she was going.

She had no one but herself to blame when her feet became tangled in the hem of her dress and she clattered to the floor.

With a slightly dopey grin on her face, she got back to her feet and tiptoed off.

Entering one of the castle's many unused rooms with some freshly picked pink flowers in hand (because she always had a spare bunch tucked inside her cloak, in case of emergencies) she found herself confronted by the unexpected sight of someone who was definitely not supposed to be there.

"Err…" Arrow'Nash stared at Gwen with wide eyes, and promptly ate the rather complicated piece of paper detailing aeronautical mathematical equations she had been scrawling on.

Gwen blinked.

"Hello," Arrow'Nash mumbled, spewing chewed up bits of paper in Gwen's face in her rush to not look suspicious. "I was just… err… drawing a picture of a pie…"

"A pie?"

"Um… Yeah… It looked good, so I thought I'd eat it… err…"

Arrow'Nash accidentally spat a rather large section of her calculations in Gwen's face, which the maidservant peeled off and scrutinised.

As Arrow'Nash mumbled some half-hearted diatribe about butterflies and rolling pins, Gwen reached behind her ear for a pencil, and began making corrections.

"What are you doing?" Arrow'Nash asked, stepping closer.

"You need to move _x_ to over _y _so that the equation balances and the time-shield isn't distorted, do you see?"

Arrow'Nash seemed a little surprised. "I thought… I thought…"

"You thought I was stupid?"

"Um… Well… I wouldn't be quite so blunt… But all that talk about bunnies and flowers doesn't exactly make you look like a Nobel Prize winner…"

"Well, I'm not stupid. And neither are you."

Arrow'Nash sighed, and sank into her chair, dropping the pretence. "I know that… But it's better if other people don't. I'm fed up of being expected to solve everybody's problems… If people think I'm simple, then it's just easier…"

Gwen nodded and grinned. "So… Is this a plan for a flux capacitor?"

"Yeah… I thought it might help us fix the plot cavities in the fabric of the… wait… Why do _you_ pretend to be stupid?"

Gwen shrugged. "Same reason. I really don't need the extra work. Plus, Uther would probably burn me for being some sort of heretic. And… I do actually kind of like the bunnies and flowers. I find them calming. It's a tough life, being a genius."

"You can say that again."

"It's a tough life, being a genius."

Arrow'Nash grinned at Gwen. "So… Are you saying that if I rewrite the first half of the formula you think I might be able to mend the force field and alter the frequency of the waves emitted by the…"

"Yep. Then all you have to worry about is the distortion of the space-time continuum because of the magnification of the Doppler Effect when you exceed light speed… Just watch those numerators over theta!"

"Because of the effect of the beams when travelling through the vacuum?"

"Exactly."

Just then a nameless knight strolled into the room, and narrowed his eyes at the pair of women who appeared to have been having some form of intellectual debate.

_Intelligent women? _He thought to himself, his brain threatening to implode at the sheer ridiculousness of the very concept. _Not possible. They must be witches._

But before his exceptionally slow thought process could lead him to the inevitable shrieking, finger-pointing and cries of _"Burn her!"_ Gwen and Arrow'Nash were approximately 7.890 to the power of 22 steps ahead of him, and had already begun to smile blankly, and hum sweet little tunes.

"I'm going to go and sing to some pretty little birdies in the garden!" Gwen announced, making a concerted effort to look clumsy as she sauntered past the knight.

"Rabbits!" declared Arrow'Nash, who was now staring up at the ceiling as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. "Cute, fluffy, adorable little rabbits… Bonbons, chocolate éclairs, tin foil, glittery disco balls, pantaloons, cherry blossoms, tartan skirts…"

It wasn't long before Arrow'Nash's demented ramblings had their usual effect, and she was left in peace to finish contemplating the fact that her current situation defied all known laws of physics.

**.**

The knight stumbled out into the corridor, feeling a little dazed, trying to remember what it was the he had been doing in the first place.

He caught sight of Gwen skipping off down the corridor…

_Wait! That was it!_

"Miss Gwen…" he coughed, trying to get her attention. "Miss Gwen! You're not supposed to be in the castle! Everyone's meant to be in the courtyard: the King's about to deliver a very important speech…"

Gwen nodded and smiled. "Shall we go and see if Gaius is still in his chambers?"

**.**

Gwen and the nameless knight (who, for the purposes of characterisation, we shall call Randy) arrived at the physician's chambers, where it was inexplicably cold.

Randy shivered.

"Gaius…?" Gwen asked, her teeth chattering. "Why is it so chilly here?"

The inhabitants of the physician's chambers (all of whom were wearing ugly, misshapen jumpers made from a spectacularly unattractive rust-coloured wool) turned to observe the intruders with looks of disinterestedness.

"Hello Gwen," Gaius muttered, not looking up from his computer screen. "Sorry about the cold, there appears to be a bit of a draught, I'm afraid… Have you met these two? One of them is a cat and the other one is some form of natural disaster…"

"Err…" Gwen observed the two faceless girls with confusion.

"I'm Kitty O," Kitty O informed her, not looking up from Merlin's sleeping face, which was buried in her lap, after it had finally succumbed to unconsciousness, much to her enjoyment. "I'm not a cat. I don't even like cats. Stupid cats. And that's Whirlwind421. She's not an actual whirlwind, as far as I know."

Whirlwind421 beamed energetically at Gwen. "Hey there!"

Gwen nodded. "I'm Gwen. And this," she pointed to Randy, "Is… um… is… What's your name?"

Randy shrugged and muttered something non-committal.

There was what would have been an extremely awkward silence, if it were not for Kitty O murmuring sweet nothings into Merlin's ear. She wasn't doing it particularly well, because she wasn't overly comfortable doing it in front of so many people, but she felt she ought to be doing something to remind everyone that Merlin was _her_ boyfriend…

"Right," Gwen nodded, trying to recapture the conversation. "We came here… err… because you're supposed to be going to the King's speech."

"I've already seen it," Gaius grunted from his perch, arched over his computer.

"What?"

"I said I've already seen it… Don't you listen, girl?"

"You can't have already seen it; he hasn't even started yet…"

"I watched it on YouTube before the official release. I wasn't exactly going to sit around and wait a thousand years for a cinema to be built, was I? I thought Helena Bonham Carter was excellent, but I never have been able to stand that Colin Firth. He should just stick to jumping into lakes in period costume, as far as I'm concerned…"

If Gaius had bothered to look up from his laptop, he would have easily recognised the baffled expression on Gwen's face as a sign that she had no idea what he was talking about.

"Gaius," Gwen tried again, speaking very slowly, in case old age had finally caught up with her friend. "Uther is making a speech in the courtyard. All citizens of Camelot are to attend, without exception."

"Oh," Gaius chuckled nervously. "Of course." He slammed the lid to his laptop shut reluctantly and got to his feet.

It was then that Gwen noticed there was a rug on the floor that had not previously been there. It was a round, red rug that appeared to have been plonked down on a totally random piece of floor for no good reason; Gwen edged closer to it.

Randy was not interested in the rug. He had only just noticed that two of the women in the room had no discernible facial features and so, logically, _had_ to be witches.

He stepped forward menacingly, withdrawing his sword and preparing to start getting authoritative, when he placed a foot squarely on Gaius' new rug.

Now, if Gaius' new rug had been purely decorative, there would have been absolutely nothing wrong with this.

In fact, what would have happened next would probably have been that Randy would have advanced closer towards the faceless girls, and begun some rather unpleasant altercation.

As it was, Gaius' new rug was not purely decorative.

Unbeknownst to Randy, the rug had been placed on that particular spot of floor in order to cover up the gaping plot hole there.

And so, when Randy placed a foot on the rug, instead of being able to get a firm footing and start waving his sword around and making accusations, the rug beneath him gave way and he let out a squeal of surprise, disappearing into a swampy abyss of nothingness.

There was a pause.

Gwen frowned.

She looked up, and noticed that there was a sign that read, '_Chamber Sweet Chamber'_ nailed across what she assumed was another similar hole in the window.

Gaius smiled and offered her an arm: "Shall we?"

**.**

"Citizens of Camelot," Uther shifted his footing, trying to make sure that his stance was such that he looked as imposing as possible. He scowled in a kingly manner down at the assembled crowd, none of whom appeared to be taking him particularly seriously. There were a few jeers of _'No dress today, Mrs Uther?'_ and _'I'm sorry… What was that you said about King Uther the dragon?'_, but a bit more of his intense scowling ought to shut them up. Uther had never been confronted with a crowd that could withstand the power of his scowl for long.

"I have gathered you here today to speak to you about a matter of great importance: the punctuation purge."

There was silence in the crowd.

A group of undercover asterisks, who had been lingering quietly in the shadows, waited with baited breath.

"As you all know, my son, Arthur…"

"_We know who your son is!" _a voice jostled from the crowd.

"I was going to finish that sentence!" Uther muttered indignantly to himself. He turned to the closest knight and hissed in a disgruntled voice, "Did somebody not tell them the rule about my dramatic pauses?"

"_Hey Uther, are you going to finish that sentence, or can I have it?"_ another voice harped up at him.

"Quiet! I am the King of Camelot and you will show me some respect or I will kill you all! Don't test me! I'll do it!" He turned to the same knight next to him for conformation.

The knight nodded seriously at the crowd. "Oh… He'll do it alright. I really wouldn't test him, if I were you…"

The crowd were now mostly silent, except for the odd sarcastic tut or sigh.

"Now… As I was saying: the punctuation purge. My son, Arthur, began the purge. As much as I admire his ingenuity in deciding to counter a problem by killing an entire group of people for no especially good reason - an excellent idea, if I do say so myself - I am afraid I must tell you that his actions, in this instance, were wrong. I have had to reverse the ban, and hope to peacefully and swiftly restore punctuation to Camelot in time for the publication of my new autobiographical novel, _The King and I_, leaflets about which some of the knights of Camelot are handing out amongst you as we speak…"

Uther paused for breath. As it turned out, this was not a wise idea.

Unbeknownst to Uther; on a turret a strategic distance away from him, M. Diane and ringo'simaginarycat had amassed their leftover punctuation with the intention of making nuisances of themselves. Since neither of them was overly fond of the murderous, cross-dressing tyrant before them, this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

M. Diane squinted into her binoculars, and observed Uther's intake of breath with a grin. She stretched her slingshot out in front of her. "The eagle has landed. Pass me a question mark!"

ringo'simaginarycat thought it best to do as told, and cackled conspiratorially.

Uther grasped the walls of Camelot tightly in his gloved fingers for dramatic effect. He wasn't entirely sure whether or not the citizens of Camelot could see his hand gestures from way down in the courtyard, but it made him feel better, and he was certain that helped him to project his voice better.

"We find ourselves on the point of change?" Uther found himself startled by the sudden appearance of a flying question mark: it had come hurtling through the air and smacked him straight in the face, totally altering the meaning of his sentence.

"_I don't know!"_ the arrogantly italicised crowd sniggered from beneath him. _"Do we find ourselves on the point of change?"_

"What happened?" Uther demanded of that same, poor, nearby knight, who was really beginning to wish that he'd not had this shift today.

"Errm," the knight cleared his throat. "It would appear that a projectile question mark was launched at you, altering the grammatical make up of your sentence from a declarative to an interrogative."

Uther scowled his notably fearsome scowl at the knight. "Nobody is allowed to be cleverer than me! Dispose of him!"

The next nearby knight rolled their eyes, and glanced down over the courtyard. Upon deciding that they couldn't be bothered to drag the former knight all the way down to the dungeons to be properly executed, he simply shoved him off the balcony instead.

Uther watched as the body of the knight took out several of his citizens as it collided with the ground. He hoped very hard that those just happened to be the citizens who had dared to challenge his authority.

"_Was he trying to fly?"_

No such luck, apparently.

Uther rolled his eyes, and regained his dignity. "We must draw!" Uther found himself announcing. He gritted his teeth. "Together," he continued. "In this time of new understanding. Camel!"

The confused crowd looked around them, trying to catch a glimpse of said camel.

"Lot's in danger."

"_I don't like Lot."_

"_He's not nice at all."_

"_Why should we care if he's in danger?"_

From their position hidden behind a gargoyle up on a turret, M. Diane and ringo'simaginarycat were struggling to continue through uncontrollable fits of giggles. M. Diane's shots became less precise, and she ended up simply firing obscene amounts of totally random punctuation in Uther Pendragon's face.

"!A!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!g!h!h!" Uther cried as a sudden bombardment of exclamation marks nearly bowled him over, and left him looking incredibly surprised.

"^&*(What's ()&% happening?&*()" he demanded.

Unfortunately, there was no one around for Uther to demand this of. The few remaining knights had had the intellectual capabilities to foresee that this would somehow end up being their faults, and they would pay with their lives, and so had simply slipped off to go and join Sir Gwaine at the tavern.

Uther was left standing on the balcony, hopping around, swatting away the oncoming assault of punctuation like a madman.

The crowd watched Uther fidgeting around madly and yelping, and actually seemed disappointed.

"_I much preferred last Thursday's speech,"_ one of them remarked to the other.

"_Which was that?"_ the other remarked to the one. _"The one about Casual Fridays, or the one banning cloud watching?"_

"_Neither. It was the one about the Morris dancing in leap years."_

"_I thought that was the Thursday before."_

"_No, you're thinking of executing all people whose names begin with the letter 'Q'."_

"_Oh, yeah. I do miss old Quentin."_

"_And Queenie…"_

The crowd gradually dispersed, and the sound of Uther's demented wails were generally ignored as they rang throughout the kingdom.

"~~~~I~ _hate~_ tildes~~!~~~" the King insisted, as he batted them away from his face.

M. Diane stopped flinging her latest batch of hyphens at him for a second, and turned to ringo'simaginarycat (who was in the process of trying to fit a pilcrow into a slingshot. It wasn't going well) "At least we have something in common," she remarked, before firing.

**.**

Back in Camelot's lower town, the knights who had fled for their lives - after Uther had begun his spontaneous fidget-dancing - had now joined the back of a rather long, drunken conga line, which was curving its way around Camelot, and appeared to be being led by a singing barrel on legs that was howling some demented Spanish song about a cockroach.

Kitty O and Whirlwind421 were sitting in the tavern (where they had gone after eventually getting bored of observing an unconscious Merlin), watching all of this.

They didn't think that they had had anything to drink (Kitty O, in fact, did not endorse drinking in general. Not that she could remember quite why that was right now…), but by some plot device or other they were apparently drunk.

"I'd like a glass of mead, I think," Kitty O announced, grinning sappily at Whirlwind421, who seemed rather engrossed by a passing fly.

Whirlwind421 eventually grinned back at her. "OK, KO. Hey, did you notice that?"

Kitty O hiccupped. "Notice what?"

"Your initials," Whirlwind421 slurred, "are OK backwards. That's cool."

Kitty O hiccupped again. "I'd like a glass of mead," she repeated.

Eventually, a glass of Meade appeared in front of her. That sobered Kitty O up pretty quickly. Whirlwind421, however, hadn't yet noticed. She was still happily engaged watching a fly.

Kitty O nudged Whirlwind421 in the side quite sharply, capturing her attention and scaring away the fly she had been observing.

Whirlwind421 scowled at Kitty O. "Ow! What was that for?"

"I asked for a glass of mead."

"Yeah? You got one."

"No. I got a glass of Meade." she waved the glassful of telescope bits under Whirlwind421's nose as evidence of this.

"Oh dear…" Whirlwind421 looked outside to where the half-barrel half-human hybrid that was Sir Gwaine had collapsed on the floor in a drunken heap. "Has he been drinking that stuff? That's terrible… No wonder he smells so funny… This author's spelling really is awful, huh?"

Kitty O nodded glumly, and let her head collapse back onto the table, as she wondered whether or not Merlin had regained consciousness yet.

"Do you think the rest of The League is on their way soon?"

In answer to Whirlwind421's question, the plot hole that had begun considering whether or not it ought to start existing at the mention of 'Meade' had rather suddenly concluded that it should, and there was a loud crunching sound coming from the rapidly splintering table beneath them.


	13. Chapter 13 PART ONE

**A/N: I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT NOT EVERYBODY READS AUTHOR'S NOTES. THAT'S FINE. BUT DON'T COME ASKING ME QUESTIONS AT THE END THAT I COVERED AT THE BEGINNING, THAT'S ALL I'M SAYING. Right. Headmistress impression over for now. Time for expressions of joy. _I'm back I'm back I'm back!_ I know it's taken forever for me to get this chapter up (I have excuses, but they're long and plentiful)... so thank you all for being so patient :D Quick, it's time for me to do that credit thing asap: the '_Send for Vegetables_' joke made an appearance due to popular request, Eliza Williams suggested someone have a punctuation-hoover device, YOUTHFULwolfie invented the fangirlbasher2000 and requested that the knights speak in American slang. I believe that is it for this half of the chapter. Yes, I did just say 'this half of the chapter'. Here comes the exciting news that is so exciting and important that I probably should have mentioned it first but I didn't so deal with it. This chapter is too long, so it comes to you in TWO HALVES, so it is softer and fuzzier on your brains. Now... Since I have been so nice in doing something like that (now my chapter 14 will actually be chapter 15, I have messed up my entire story just to stop your brain from melting) I think maybe you ought to review. Oh no, wait. I just guilt-tripped you into reviewing, which means you now aren't morally obliged to review. I messed up my own argument, simply by making it! Oh well. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, it makes me SO happy. This chapter is dedicated to the random anonymous reviewer who left me a review basically just ordering me to update, which kind of made me smile. Because it said please and had a smiley face, so it wasn't too _'you will obey'_. It is also dedicated to Jissai, who is leaving the realm of fanfiction at the end of the month... but hopefully returning? *adorable face* Finally... just thanks everyone! Your kindness really does make the time spent writing this worth it. **

The innkeeper scowled at Kitty O and Whirlwind421 from his position behind the bar.

Whirlwind421 shrugged apologetically, "Err… sorry," she told him, gesturing at the rapidly splintering table beneath them. "It wasn't us; it just sort of… um… did it."

The innkeeper did not appear to believe this, but he happened to be more concerned about the fact that Sir Gwaine was apparently not intending to pay for his refreshments - once again - and bustled out onto the street to go and deal with the roguish knight.

As it turned out, this was a good thing, because the splintering table very quickly disintegrated, to be replaced by what looked suspiciously like some sort of crack in the very fabric of time.

If Kitty O and Whirlwind421 had not seen one of these things before, they might have now started to panic, flee the city, declaring that the end of the world was nigh.

But, because they were perfectly aware of what it was, all they did was sit and wait patiently for someone to emerge.

Whirlwind421 scratched her nose.

Kitty O blinked.

"Who do you think it's going to be?" Whirlwind421 asked.

Kitty O shrugged. "Dunno."

Silence.

Whirlwind421 let out a puff of air.

And then there was an uncomfortable scrabbling sound.

"_Ow!"_ squeaked a voice, apparently from inside the plot hole.

Kitty O and Whirlwind421 shared a frown.

"_I can't find the way out!"_

"_What do you mean you can't find the way out?"_

"_Exactly what I said: I can't find the way out!"_

"_Calm down you two… Why don't we try going towards the light?"_

"_Aren't you supposed to 'stay away from the light'?"_

"_This is no time for sarcasm!"_

Kitty O and Whirlwind421 leaned over the edge of the plot hole, peering into it, trying to catch a glimpse of the source of the argument. They saw nothing but darkness.

"_I think she means like the light at the end of the tunnel."_

"_But there is no light! All I can see is darkness!"_

"Come here!" Whirlwind421 yelled into the plot hole, trying to be helpful.

"_Who said that?"_

"_Was it you?"_

"_Who are you anyway?"_

"_Who are you? Who am I? I just don't know anymore…"_

"_Hasn't she done this joke before?"_

"_What?"_

"_Don't ask me. I don't know what I'm talking about."_

"_I don't understand…"_

"_I don't know… it's horrible in here, I can't follow your speech and work out who's talking…"_

"Come towards the sound of my voice," Kitty O commanded, trying to lean further into the hole, but being pulled back by Whirlwind421, who didn't particularly want anyone else getting lost in there.

"_Oh… alright then…"_

"_Can you just keep talking, so we can hear if we're getting closer?"_

"Sure… of course…" Kitty O agreed, then suddenly realised that she could think of absolutely nothing to say. Frantic, she turned to Whirlwind421 for help.

"Errm… Hi. I'm Whirlwind421… Err… I like Doctor Who! Do you like Doctor Who? I miss ten… I like eleven… But I miss ten so much!"

Kitty O seemed confused.

"_Are we any closer?"_

"I don't know," Kitty O admitted, scanning the hole. "Do we sound louder?"

"_A bit, I guess."_

"_Do we?"_

Kitty O considered this. "Yeah… I think so…"

"_Oh Good!"_

"_We must be getting closer."_

"_I can't wait to get out of this stupid hole."_

"_That's the last time I agree to do something, 'FOR THE LOVE OF CAMELOT'."_

"Actually…" Kitty O continued, "I can tell your voices apart better the closer you get… Your accents become more distinct."

"_Oh goody!"_

"_Yes… It's nice to have a semblance of a personality again, isn't it?"_

"Oh, you're right!" Whirlwind421 squealed, beaming at Kitty O delightedly. "Their voices were definitely at different pitches!"

At that very moment, a hand erupted from out of the plot hole, and started searching for something to grip onto.

Kitty O and Whirlwind421 grabbed the hand, and tried to haul it, and its owner, up out of the plot hole and into the story.

As it was, they ended up dragging three people, in a long chain, all clinging onto each other; who then landed rather uncomfortably in a heap on the cold tavern floor, panting for breath.

magnusrae dusted herself off, sheathed the flaming sword she had decided to bring with her (just in case), and helped Nicicia and Eliza Williams to their feet.

At that precise moment, as the fanfictioners stood, sizing one another up, Gwaine, still firmly wedged in a barrel, burst into the tavern, and attempted to hide behind them.

"Help!" he implored of them, looking extremely pathetic.

They frowned at him, unable to work out exactly what it was he wanted help with: the putrid smell of decomposing fruit emanating from him, the angry innkeeper ranting and raving at them or the fact that he was stuck in a barrel.

"I demand payment!" insisted the innkeeper.

Gwaine shrugged endearingly - as best he could while encased in a barrel - and attempted to ungallantly place magnusrae in front of him.

Fortunately, before the situation could deteriorate any further, Eliza Williams brought from her pocket a large, hoover-like device, and held it up to the mouth of the innkeeper, as he tried to repeat his demand.

He found himself unable to, as she sucked his exclamation away into her vacuum, supplementing him with a question mark instead, so he found himself asking, "I demand payment?"

"No," Nicicia told him helpfully, patting him on the back. "No, you don't."

The poor innkeeper, by now horribly confused, was used to Gwaine getting his way, so simply shook his head, muttered something foul to himself and stumbled off.

Gwaine crept out from behind magnusrae, and tried to bow down to the ladies before him without toppling over. "To whom am I indebted?" he inquired.

"Kitty O, Whirlwind421…" Kitty O began, gesturing at herself and her friend (although she was unsure whether or not Gwaine could see her hand gestures from inside the barrel).

"I'm magnusrae," Nicicia introduced herself, curtsying, because it seemed polite.

"No, _I'm_ magnusrae. You're Nicicia," magnusrae corrected, nodding at the drunken barrel-person before her.

"Oh… yeah, right," Nicicia nodded to herself, trying to get accustomed to having a personality again.

"And I'm Eliza Williams. But you can call me Elizakiwi."

The others frowned at her. "Why would we do that?" magnusrae asked, seeming perplexed.

Elizakiwi shifted uncomfortably. "Everyone else has daft names… I felt left out…"

**.**

Uther came in off the balcony, stormed through the halls to his bedchamber, slammed the door shut behind him and flopped down on his bed, where he proceeded to sob for a good five minutes.

Then he thought of something that might cheer him up.

He plodded to his door, which he promptly flung open, and scowled at the two knights who had been stationed there, looking extremely uncomfortable after witnessing their monarch's hissy fit.

Uther rubbed at his eyes and ordered them to, "Send for Vegetables!"

The knights nodded, and scarpered off in totally different directions in their haste to escape a hormonal King, who simply skulked back into his room, and began writing a soliloquy.

Uther wasn't left brooding for long before there was a light tap on the door.

"Come in," he muttered darkly.

Vegetables entered the room, looking concerned.

"Are you alright Uther?"

He scowled up at her, tears streaming down his face. "I'm fine," he insisted, his lip trembling.

Vegetables nodded, unsure of the best way to proceed.

At that moment, there was another knock on the door, and one of the knights Uther had earlier sent to go and fetch Vegetables shuffled bashfully into the room, his arms laden with broccoli, cabbages and carrots.

There was a pause.

"Have you come to the wrong place?" Uther asked the knight quietly.

"No…" the knight seemed confused, and looked to Vegetables for help, who simply shrugged at him.

"Are you certain? Did you not mean to go to the kitchens?"

The knight shook his head slowly.

Uther stood, and walked menacingly over to the knight, who was beginning to shake in his boots.

"Then just why, exactly, have you brought me an armful of vegetables?"

The knight gulped. "Because," he explained, in a very quiet voice, "you asked me to _send for vegetables_."

"Idiot!" Uther exclaimed, knocking the pile of vegetables out from the knight's hands and sending them to the floor with a squelch. "Is there not one competent knight in this place who can understand simple capitalisation?"

The knight looked as if he was about to cry. "I suppose you're going to order me to be killed now," he mumbled.

"How very perceptive of you; are you also a seer? I ought to burn you for that! I like burning people…"

Uther's eyes became slightly glazed, and Vegetables gestured to the knight to back away slowly.

The knight did as he was told.

Uther turned to Vegetables and sighed. "Sorry about that. I'm having a bit of a hard day…"

"That's okay Uther," she offered him a sympathetic smile. "But you really mustn't go around condemning people to death every time you're feeling a bit low, alright? Why don't you tell me about whatever's bothering you?"

Uther sank into his chair and frowned. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay… Let's talk about your autobiographical novel: what are you calling it?"

"I'm thinking of re-titling it _The King and Die_," he told her proudly.

"In my pants," she added.

"What?"

"_The King and Die In My Pants_, has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh… sorry… I like adding 'in my pants' to the ends of titles, didn't I tell you that?"

Uther shrugged. "You might have done. If people aren't talking about me or about magic, I tend to tune out."

As Uther sat, contemplating his manifold woes; Vegetables mulled over his use of the phrase "I tend to tune out". That couldn't possibly be a good thing, could it? 'Tuning out' had to be a reference to radio usage, and unless Uther had a wireless stashed somewhere in his chambers, there was no way that phrase could possibly make any sense to him at all. _So why had he used it?_ Then again, there was always the possibility that she was over-reacting; it _could_ be no more dangerous than Gwen calling her father 'Dad', or Gaius wearing glasses…

Eventually Uther shattered the silence. "Woe is me!" he declared, smacking his forehead with a giant, gloved hand.

"Oh, really? Why is that?"

"I have made a fool of myself…"

Vegetables, without knowing exactly what it was Uther was referring to, thought that this was probably true.

"I delivered a speech to the people, and ended it by swatting away tildes! _I hate tildes…_"

"Could you elaborate a little, Uther? I'm struggling to follow…"

"I started my speech very well… I was extremely authoritative. I used rhetoric: you would have been proud. And then this question mark came flying out of nowhere and hit me in the face… Before I knew what was happening I was being terrorised by exclamation marks and tildes from the sky!"

"That's awful… Wait… Did you say tildes?"

"Yes! Tildes!"

Vegetables sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Excuse me Uther, I need to… err… go and see a man about a dog."

"You would leave me here, on my own?"

"I'll be back in a minute, alright?"

Uther grumbled something about misery and company in response.

Upon passing the doorway, Vegetables paused, and looked sorrowfully at the downtrodden pile of broccoli, carrots and cabbages on the floor.

She scowled.

"Vegetables _will_ have their revenge," she muttered cryptically to herself, before stalking off.

**.**

It didn't take Vegetables long to find the culprits. She simply followed the trail of scattered tildes around the castle, to find M. Diane and ringo'simaginarycat tiptoeing down from one of the turrets, giggling to themselves.

"Camel!" M. Diane snickered.

"Lot's in danger!" ringo'simaginarycat tittered.

Vegetables frowned. She didn't have time for private jokes.

She simply put her hands on her hips, tapped her foot on the ground expectantly, and waited for them to bump into her.

"Oomph!"

"Sorry Vegetables," muttered Ringo'simaginarycat (who had suddenly decided to adopt a capital letter, for no obvious reason).

"Didn't see you there…" M. Diane added apologetically.

Vegetables said nothing.

They fidgeted awkwardly.

"Have we done something wrong?"

"I think you know the answer to that question."

M Diane shrugged. "We're sorry," (she didn't sound particularly sorry). "But it was pretty funny."

"You should have seen Uther swatting away tildes," Ringo'simaginarycat told her, with a grin.

The corners of Vegetables' lips threatened to curve into a smirk, but she had to try and remain serious. "Look… guys… I'm sure it was funny. But Uther's up in his room crying about it, doesn't that make you feel bad?"

They didn't look as if it did.

"Okay, let me try this; we're all here to save Camelot. And, funny as it is to disrupt Uther's speeches, we need to all stick together on this one, guys. _For the love of Camelot_?" she tacked on hopefully.

At those famous five words, the eyes of her companions glazed over slightly, and they raised their fists to the heavens and chanted back at her, "FOR THE LOVE OF CAMELOT!"

Before skipping off merrily to hopefully go and do something slightly less troublesome.

**.**

Morgana and Morgause were not far from Camelot now.

The fact that they had got this far was, of course, entirely down to the intellectual prowess of Morgause, and had not been helped at all by the incessant asinine interruptions of Morgana, who seemed determined to point out every single squirrel they passed.

As they began to make their way through a wood that looked exactly like the other seventeen woods they had passed through on their journey, a small, creepy-looking child popped up out of nowhere and appeared at their side.

"Mordred!" Morgana exclaimed, resting a hand on her chest in surprise. "You really mustn't jump out at people like that!"

"You could give someone a heart attack," Morgause added, sternly.

"If only," Mordred muttered.

Before Morgause could set about trying to turn Mordred into a toad, Morgana intervened.

"Now, now, Mordred. That's no way to speak to your Auntie Morgause."

Mordred pulled a face, and repeated her words in an irritating, high-pitched voice, "That's no way to speak to your Auntie Morgause!"

"What are you doing here, Mordred?" Morgana asked, batting away Morgause's hands as she tried to curse the sullen pre-pubescent. "Did you get lost again?"

"No," Mordred admitted, scuffing his boots on the floor. "The druids told me we were playing hide and seek, but when I came looking for them, they'd all gone…"

"Well at least we agree with druids about something, ssssisster!" Morgause hissed.

"Sh! Don't listen to her, it's that time of the month."

Mordred seemed confused.

"It's alright, Mordred," Morgana told him, ruffling his hair. "You can come with us; we're going to attack Camelot. Do you fancy that?"

Mordred huffed and rolled his eyes. "I suppose… As long as I get to take Emrys; I never forgive, and I _never_ forget…"

"Like an elephant!" Morgana pointed out, somewhat unhelpfully.

"Who's Emrys?" Morgause asked, suddenly finding the creepy little druid-boy of interest.

Mordred made a gesture either side of his head to indicate large, flappy ears.

"Merlin!" both of the women gasped with tremendous force.

There was the strange, inexplicable sound of the author swearing in the distance, suggesting that the witches were not supposed to have gained this knowledge so soon.

The ground beneath them began to shake.

It rumbled and tumbled, sending the sisters flying off their horses, and eliciting complaints from the assembled Terrences, who had, until now, been content to simply observe the scene with silent interest.

"Is this an earthquake?"

"But, that's not possible!"

The tremors simply grew bigger.

"We don't live on, or near, any tectonic plate boundaries!"

"You lie, Terrence!"

"I do not!"

"Oh yes you do!"

"Oh no I don't!"

"Fellows, please; could we return to the topic…"

"Shut up, Slartibartfast!"

"Tremors are usually so minor that we don't even feel them!"

"But there have been some notable exceptions…"

"Oh! Have there?"

"From 974 to 1199 - I'm taking into account the ambiguity of the period in which the Arthurian legend was set…"

"That's a good point - does anybody even know what year it is?"

There was universal grunting and shaking of heads - someone muttered something about the _real_ Arthur having existed in the mid-6th Century, and was promptly told to can it - as the trees around them clattered to the floor and the witches' screams were categorically ignored.

"If I could return to my point…"

"Well, that's only fair, I suppose…"

Everyone else seemed to agree.

"There were only 14 notable earthquakes recorded in England."

"What was that period again?"

"I don't remember…"

"The point is that, even then, the worst problems faced were property damage. Nothing like this."

All around them, rocks cracked and animals fled.

A great gap appeared in the forest floor, and the Terrences peered in, to see a strange woman hop out, with a question mark fastened about her waist like a make-shift grappling hook.

She checked a map in her hand, looked around her, and seemed confused.

Then she yanked on the end of a long piece of rope attached to the question mark, and ended up pulling out coils and coils of it.

Eventually, at the very end of the extremely long rope, was a wet person.

"Jaq!" the wet person spluttered. "What was that?"

Jaq shrugged sheepishly. "Err… sorry. Why are you wet?"

"_You_ pulled me through the toilet!"

Jaq seemed no less confused, so Kizzia decided to elaborate.

"I was hiding in the work toilets after reading a particularly funny fanfiction, and there I was, sitting on the toilet seat, when _you_ lasso me around the waste and yank me through the sewage system, into some kind of black hole, and then dump me in a field!"

"Well… It was your fault."

"_My_ fault? You pulled me through a toilet!"

"You shouldn't have been in a toilet; you _knew_ I was coming for you. We had a plan."

"A plan we were _supposed_ to be executing _half an hour later_! You sprung it on me!"

Jaq wasn't sure what to say, so she just shrugged. "Oh well. It's a sunny day; you'll dry out. Anyway… we're here now."

Kizzia looked about her, frowning. "And just _where_ exactly is _here_?"

"Err…" Jaq was just realising the same thing as Kizzia. "A field?"

Kizzia flung her hands up skyward. "I don't believe this, Jaq! I leave you in charge of reading the map, and this is where it gets me? In the middle of a _field_?"

"You ought to try it! It's a pretty hard map to read… All the writing's in some strange dialect, the perspective is pretty abstract and the border is filled with pictures of monsters. It's not exactly like reading a road map…"

Just as Kizzia was about to retort, Morgause coughed.

"Sorry to interrupt," she snarled, in a tone that communicated, quite clearly, that she wasn't even a little bit sorry. "But who are you?"

Morgana rolled her eyes and elbowed her sister in the sides. "Morgause!" she muttered in her sister's ear. "It is behaviour like this that means we do not have any friends!"

Morgause ignored her sister and withdrew her sword. "What are your names?"

"I'm Kizzia PBO."

"And I'm jaqtkd."

This did not go down well with the Terrences.

Morgause scowled. "Excuse me?"

"Is that Jack TUH-KUH-DUH?" one Terrence piped up.

"No… I think it's Jack TEE-KAY-DEE," another suggested.

"Are you sure it's not jaqt kd?"

"That's a stupid suggestion, Slartibartfast," a third Terrence declared, turning their back on poor Slartibartfast, who was gradually getting more and more fed up of this wretched fandom.

Jaq rolled her eyes. "Just call me Jaq."

This seemed to silence the Terrences momentarily.

"Where are you heading?"

"To Camelot…" Kizzia began, glancing nervously at them.

"We're not allies of theirs… we're going plundering," Jaq added hastily.

"And pillaging!" Kizzia continued, with an unconvincing 'thumbs up'.

"Any enemy of Camelot is a friend of ours, Morgause," Morgana murmured into her sister's ear.

Kizzia observed the sisters' apparently compulsive need to touch each other constantly with strange fascination. "They really _are_ like that, then," she noted in hushed tones, to jaqtkd. "It's not an act…"

"I don't trust them!" Morgause announced, waving her sword around authoritatively.

"You never trust anybody," Morgana grumbled, ducking Morgause's flying weaponry so as not to get her head sliced off.

"I trusted _you_," Morgause, not one to lose an argument, pointed out. "And look where it got me… Oh! No… Morgana! Don't cry…"

Morgause hissed in frustration and turned back to her captives, aiming her sword at Kizzia's foot.

"What's that?"

"What's what? My foot?"

Morgause snarled, and pointed with more vigour. "What's that stuck to your foot? Imbecile…"

"Oh…" Kizzia looked down at the offending article, then back up to scowl at jaqtkd. "I think it's toilet paper."

"What is this 'toilet paper'?" Morgause queried, scrunching up her nose in distaste.

"Actually… I don't think it is toilet paper…" Jaq leaned down to get a better look, peeling the note off the bottom of Kizzia's foot. She nodded knowingly at her companion. "It's an A/N."

Morgause, who did not take kindly to being ignored, advanced menacingly. "I believed I asked - no _demanded_, _I _do not _ask_…" Morgause tossed her glorious mane arrogantly over her shoulder, and then frowned a little, seeming to have slight trouble remembering what it was she had been talking about. "…what this _toilet paper_ is." She narrowed her eyes and poked her prisoners with the end of her exceptionally pointy sword. "Explain!"

"Wait!" Morgause screeched, before either of the authors could get a word in. "I recognise that writing! This is an _author's note_! Are you responsible for these repugnant pieces of parchment?"

"Um…"

Kizzia's uncertain hedging was accepted by Morgause as a sign of sure guilt.

"Sister…" Morgause turned to Morgana, allowing her sword to drop to her side for a second. "You are not responsible for the notes…"

Morgana sniffled in response, rubbing at her gradually reddening nose with a handkerchief supplied by a passing Terrence. "That's what I tried to tell you."

However Morgause's temporary display of affection was soon swept to one side, and she turned back to jaqtkd and Kizzia, sword poised to begin removing limbs one at a time.

"You shall pay for attempting to torture myself and my ssssisster with your strange, incessant scrawling!" Morgause drew closer, and held her sword up to the throats of the women in front of her. "You shall pay… with your lives!"

Morgause paused, waiting for the chilling tones of dramatic music that she had become so used to hearing whenever she sentenced one of the '_goodies_', as she had dubbed them, to death.

Nothing happened.

Morgause frowned.

Then she coughed.

"I said," she repeated, only a little louder, "_With your lives_!"

This time, all of the Terrences oohed and aahed, but it brought Morgause little pleasure. She turned to the bawling Morgana, wanting an explanation.

"Did I not cue it properly, sister?" Morgause hissed; scratching her chin as she pondered what could have possibly gone wrong.

When they looked back on this moment later, Kizzia and jaqtkd would decide that this would have been an excellent time to escape.

But, as it was, they just couldn't quite seem to tear themselves away.

"What did I do wrong: was I not frightening enough?"

Morgana shook her head, tears still trickling down her cheeks. "Oh no, Morgause. You were absolutely terrifying. I was shaking in my boots. Not that I'm wearing boots, but if I were, you can believe that I would most definitely be shaking rigorously enough in them to warrant the use of such an expression…"

Morgause cut her off by bringing her sword up worryingly close to her sister's nose.

"Careful," Slartibartfast warned, chuckling to himself. "You don't want to go cutting off her nose to spite her face…"

This witticism went largely ignored by the Terrences, causing Slartibartfast to go off in a huff, muttering to himself about being 'unappreciated'.

"Well then," Morgause concluded. "I do not understand. I am obviously not at fault, not that I could ever be at fault… Somebody else must have done something wrong!"

She turned to offer her most menacing glare to the Terrences.

"I will say my line again; and, when I do, I expect my dramatic, mood-enhancing music. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?"

There was much nodding and gulping amongst the frightened Terrences, and very little of anything else.

Morgause drew a deep breath, got her footing just the way she liked it, and bellowed, "You shall pay for attempting to torture myself and my sister with your strange, incessant scrawling… _with your lives_!"

"Dun-dun-duh!" the Terrences - who had fashioned themselves into an impromptu A cappella group - hummed.

Morgause lifted her sword above her head, ignoring her flinching victims, preparing to swing it down, and then stopped rather abruptly.

"Read it to me."

"What?"

"The note. Read it to me!"

Morgause poked Kizzia with her sword once more, just to really drive the message home.

Jaq didn't think this was a particularly good idea, but, since she failed to see any way of getting out of the situation immediately, gestured to Kizzia to read away.

Kizzia cleared her throat. "It says: _Hi everybody. Sorry it took me ages to update… But well this virus on my laptop has been driving me crazy. And my spellcheck has gawn insane… And I know this story isn't very good, and there probably isn't many people readingthis anyway… Except for ArthurGwenLover75, who should maybe stop reading storys about slash if they don't like them and are only going to be nasty… But anyway. Lots of this seems to be writing itself. And not in the way that most writers say 'it just wrote itself!' but in the way that I come downstairs in the morning and there's lots of writing on my laptop that deffo wasn't their the night before. Oh well. Maybe I'm just crazy!_"

Kizzia frowned.

Then she looked up, to see her frown mirrored on Morgause's face.

"You will die," Morgause announced, simply, swinging her sword. "But not before you explain the joke."

"But…" Kizzia began, about to explain that they weren't responsible for the note, before being sharply kicked by Jaq, who had just figured out their plan of escape.

"We'll let you in on the joke," Jaq bargained, "eventually; if you spare our lives."

Morgause paused, then hissed in frustration, sheathed her sword, and hopped back onto her horse. "I _hate_ not being in on a joke…"

**.**

"Farther!" Arthur yelled, trying to attract his father's attention as he ran down the corridor after him, but finding, when he reached the spot where the King had been standing, that he was now much further down the corridor than he had been previously.

"Farther!" he bellowed again, racing after his dad, trying to catch up with Uther, who was apparently determined to evade him.

"Farther!" the Crown Prince of Camelot, who was now clammy and red, screeched, literally in _hot_ pursuit of his father.

"Why is it that every time I try to get your attention you move further away from me? Are you avoiding me?"

Uther span around on the spot, clearly furious with his son; not that Arthur could fathom why that should be. "Are you blaming _me_ for this? _You're_ the one who keeps propelling me away!"

"What? You're being unreasonable! Farther!"

With that, Uther zipped off down the corridor again at lightning speed, but Arthur was beginning to wonder whether the King was in control of his actions at all…

**.**

The leaders of the Punctuation Trade Union, or PTU, were getting gradually more and more impatient.

One comma nudged his companion, a percent sign, in the side and muttered "I don't think they're taking this seriously."

A group of ampersands were glaring maliciously at Camelot's assembled dignitaries.

"Geoffrey," Gaius hissed, scuttling into the room. "I can't find Uther anywhere, I think we're going to have to begin the meeting without him!"

Geoffrey of Monmouth surveyed the assembled parties, de-creased his robes and straightened out his back. "It's Geoffrey's time to shine."

At that very moment, a sullen, blurry shape that looked a lot like Uther whizzed past the doorway.

Geoffrey coughed, and looked expectantly at Gaius.

Gaius sighed, and eventually hauled his one infamous eyebrow up above the other so that he seemed surprised.

Just then, Arthur appeared, panting, out of breath and gasping for air. He leant on the door frame and just about managed to squeak, "Farther!"

This was followed by a strange, whooshing sound, Arthur rolling his eyes, and then stumbling off down the corridor.

…

A chain of ellipsis hung awkwardly in the air as everybody thought about what they were going to say next.

Geoffrey of Monmouth cleared his throat and straightened out his goatee.

"Let me call to order the first of Camelot's Punctuation Tribunals. Witnesses to the stands!"

**.**

Whirlwind421 pulled another glass of Meade away from Gwaine. "I wouldn't drink that if I were you," she warned, as the group made their way down the streets of Camelot, towards the castle.

"Why not?" Gwaine inquired, linking arms with the women and drunkenly skipping them along.

"Because it's not alcohol," Kitty O informed him, trying not to laugh as he winked at her.

"I know it's not the best money can buy, love…"

"No," Nicicia cut him off. "She means it's actually not alcohol."

"Meade Instruments," Elizakiwi announced, reading from the Google results page of the phone she'd brought with her, "they make telescopes."

Gwaine burped, dislodging a cog from his throat as he did so, and inspecting it with minimal interest before discarding it. "What's a telescope?"

"It's something you use to look at the stars," Nicicia explained.

"Oh… We have those," Gwaine declared, with a grin.

"You do?" asked a concerned Elizakiwi.

"Yep. They're called _eyes_."

magnusrae was frowning at the ground.

"What's wrong with you?" Gwaine inquired, blocking her line of vision with his face.

magnusrae frowned some more.

The others saw this.

"Yeah… What _is_ wrong with you?" Kitty O probed.

"I just don't think that _he_ should be coughing up bits of telescope, is all," magnusrae explained. "I think we should take him to see Gaius."

"You're concerned? For me?" Gwaine looped his arm around her neck. "That's sweet, but I've coughed up weirder things and come out of it none the worse for wear…"

magnusrae's frown reached astronomical proportions. "Funnily enough, that doesn't reassure me very much."

"Ah… Chillax magnusrae!" Gwaine slurred, grabbing a handful of pork scratchings from the butcher's and offering some to her.

She scrunched up her nose. "No thanks. I'm a vegetarian."

"A vegetarian?" he repeated slowly as he munched.

"They don't eat meat," Elizakiwi explained helpfully.

"Is Vegetables a veg-eta-ri-an?" he asked, his voice sounding ever-so-slightly wistful.

They all paused, adopting exactly the same thinking-face.

"No."

"I like Vegetables…"

Gwaine stopped, blushing, as he realised that all of the women in the group were examining him curiously.

At that very moment, Lancelot simply happened to be strolling by.

"Hey Gwaine-oomph!"

Gwaine took one final look at all of the girls still eyeing him suspiciously, and decided to avoid their stares the only way he knew.

"Let's go make out in a cupboard," Gwaine suggested, in a tone that made it pretty clear it wasn't actually a suggestion at all.

The five authors stood, eyebrows raised, jaws dropped, not a word to speak between them.

Eventually Nicicia spoke.

"I'll go and check that they're okay."

As Nicicia scarpered off after the hand-holding knights, the remaining writers suddenly found themselves confronted by a familiar, indescribable face.

"YOUTHFULwolfie!" Elizakiwi squealed, hopping up and down excitedly. "How did you get here?"

YOUTHFULwolfie lifted an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"How did you get here?"

"What do you mean?"

"You had to get in through a plot hole, right? What was yours? Mine was eyebrows." Whirlwind421 babbled.

"I didn't get in through a plot hole."

"But… but… then how are you here?" Kitty O demanded, thoroughly perplexed and on the verge of being irritated. If you didn't _have_ to get in via a plot hole then why on earth had she spent all of that time dangling around in the ether?

"Exactly," YOUTHFULwolfie smiled.

"What do you mean 'exactly'?" magnusrae scoffed. "You can't say something that makes no sense and then follow it up with 'exactly', that's misusing the word."

"I mean I can't be here, because I didn't come in through a plot hole, but clearly I am, right?"

"Right…" the four of them echoed.

"So there you go. BAM! Plot hole. Make sense?"

"No!" Whirlwind421 declared, smacking her own forehead, and then smacking Elizakiwi's as well, just for emphasis.

"A self-fulfilling plot hole?" magnusrae asked, sounding dubious.

"That's genius," Kitty O murmured.

YOUTHFULwolfie seemed pleased.

"Which came first: the plot hole or the fanfictioner?" magnusrae smirked.

At that very moment, three of Camelot's finest knights marched out onto the streets of the lower town, and began gossiping.

"And then she said: 'Like Mary from the tavern is totally knocked up. And it's not even Peter's kid."

"Oh my gosh! She's so easy…" Percy squealed, tapping Leon's arm excitedly. "She's gonna be such a blimp! She got those massive love handles last time… Tell me more!"

Kitty O coughed, attracting their attention.

"S'up y'all!" Elyan greeted them, and it was now that they noticed for the first time he had a baseball cap balanced sideways on the top of his head, and was wearing peculiarly baggy 'pants'.

"How are you today?" Leon inquired, grinning and waving.

The authors were not sure what to object to first.

Eventually, mangusrae spoke up. She gestured vaguely in the direction of Elyan and murmured, "Nice trousers."

"Thanks," Elyan muttered, staring at his shoes, which everybody now realised were converse.

"I like your sneakers; they're really in," Leon interjected, sounding slightly sarcastic.

"Yeah… They're way cool. Where can I get some?" Percy sniggered.

Their teasing went straight over Elyan's head. He simply shrugged modestly and mumbled something about having found them next to a weird black hole.

"Oh my gosh, Elyan!" Percy exclaimed suddenly, offering his friend a slightly effeminate slap on the arm. "He was being sarcastic! Do the math."

"Yeah!" Leon added, at Elyan's confused expression. "Nice sneakers? Not so much."

"Oh…" Elyan sniffed. "Thanks, guys."

"You're welcome!" they chanted in unison, chuckling at their own wit.

Elizakiwi thought it was about time someone looked for some sort of explanation. "Just what exactly is going on here?"

"Elyan's a dork with awful threads."

Whirlwind421 blinked. "Did Percival just call Elyan a _dork_?"

"I am not a dork! I have the _whole_ package!"

"Whatever," Percy rolled his eyes.

Leon offered his friend at not-so-subtle high five, at the expense of the now sulking Elyan.

"I _am_ cool!"

"Yeah… Good luck with that."

Kitty O could hold it in no longer. She did not know why or how this was happening, but it was, quite possibly, the strangest thing she had ever witnessed. She burst out in an uncontrollable, and quite uncharacteristic, fit of giggles.

magnusrae sighed. With Kitty O rolling around on the floor, banging her hands on her head and shaking with laughter, and Whirlwind421 and Elizakiwi shooting each other looks that suggested they probably weren't far behind, she supposed it fell to her to behave responsibly. Frankly, she was getting a little tired of behaving responsibly.

"You all need to get a grip!" she barked, trying her very best to keep a straight face as Elyan's trousers slipped further down his rear end. "Will somebody please explain what's going on?"

There was a slightly uncomfortable pause.

And then Elyan decided to do an impromptu Joker impression: "Why so serious?"

That was it.

Whirlwind421, Elizakiwi and even magnusrae were down.

YOUTHFULwolfie (who for a minute, it seemed had been forgotten about) decided it was time she stepped up to the plate.

She pulled from her side a large, iron-like baton, with the words _fangirlbasher2000_ printed on the side, which she wielded above her head, a slightly demented gleam in her eye. "It's time to fangirlbash some sense into you!" she screamed, preparing to strike.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Leon pleaded, holding his hands above his head.

"Can't we try and talk it out?" Percy suggested, offering a limp smile.

This suggestion was apparently not favourable to YOUTHFULwolfie.

"I'm not normally this aggressive!" she insisted, as she thwacked Elyan in the stomach, ignoring the strange squeaking sounds made by _fangirlbasher2000_ as she did so. "It's just being around knights, it does funny things to your head!"

Elyan shrugged. "It's alright. You do know that thing's actually made of rubber, right?"

YOUTHFULwolfie lowered the baton, feeling slightly foolish. "I do now…"

Elyan shrugged yet again. "No hard feelings, ma homeboy."

From her position rolling around on the floor, Elizakiwi managed to suggest that it would be a good idea to get them to Gaius' as quickly as possible.

YOUTHFULwolfie - eyeing Elyan suspiciously as she spoke - agreed, "How do we get to the physician's chambers from here? I've never seen this part of Camelot shown on the show…"

The knights looked at her as if she had said something extremely peculiar (which she thought was somewhat ironic, all things considered) but decided they would address as much of the inquiry as they understood.

"Well… we're like in the center of Camelot right now…" Leon informed her. "But if we head over thatta way, then we should be there in no time."

Percy leaned over and winked at YOUTHFULwolfie, who just didn't know how to respond.

"What about my friends?" she inquired, gesturing at the group of giggling girls, now clutching at their aching stomachs, having reached the point of manic laughter where it is simply painful.

"Oh… No problemo," Percy declared, and promptly hoisted them all up, flinging them over his shoulder as they continued to giggle mercilessly.

Elyan offered YOUTHFULwolfie his arm. "Let's get going."

As Percy and Leon began a dialogue involving the words 'rinky-dink', 'foxy' and 'pure gravy', the fanfictioners were torn between the need to howl with laughter and concern for how on earth they were going to un-Americanise their precious Medieval English Knights.

YOUTHFULwolfie turned to Elyan, a look of sheer fear in her eyes, and passed him something that had been hidden in her pocket. "You need this more than me," she whispered. "So much more…"

Elyan frowned, turning over the thing that called itself a _Dictionary of Old English_ in his hands. What was she doing with a thing like this?

"I brought it with me in case the author was one of those who likes to have the characters speak authentically. I guess I needn't have worried… She's really messed you guys up…"

Elyan considered this, although he didn't really understand it.

Far, far away, in the land of real life, the author was most seriously affronted.


	14. Chapter 13 PART TWO

**A/N: So... this is the second half of the chapter :) Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed so far! It makes me so happy! A. Nony Mouse's review made me especially happy, because I love Jasper Fforde so much! I went to a book signing of his, and when I met him, I just babbled like a loon about my Mum! A. Nony Mouse (awesome name, btw) also had a great idea for later on in the story that I just might use, as long as that's alright with them? I just have some things that I need to say very quickly... Which are that Paralelsky suggested the dragon having a pipe and reading fanfictions, lots of people mentioned wanting 'slashdragon' references, Nicicia thought that Gwaine would have interesting naming suggestions for Merlin's child, Eliza Williams wanted to quote AVPM with Gaius, XxMileena-chanxX had the idea that Gaius speak Leet speak, I had to write my own version of a Cupboard!Merlin in honour of Ultra-Geek, to whom Cupboard!Merlin belongs, and, just quickly... To any of those of you wondering after last chapter: I DO NOT GENUINELY BELIEVE THAT ALL AMERICANS TALK LIKE THAT. I was joking. Please, please, please, please do not take _anything_ I say seriously. The same applies to the similar joke that appears at the end (I'm not going to spoil the joke and tell you what it is, but you'll understand what I mean when you read it). And thanks to Nicicia for being the only one who asked, after chapter 12, _'what happened to Randy?'. _Nicicia, you are about to find out... ;)**

Meanwhile, in the depths of the caves beneath Camelot, the Great Dragon was puffing on his pipe, leafing through M-rated fanfictions and compiling a mental list of his _TOP 10 Favourite Cryptic Sayings with Possible Slash-y Interpretations_.

He had just got to number 3: "No young man, no matter how great, can know his destiny," when he was most uncouthly interrupted, by somebody who tumbled straight out of absolutely nowhere.

"I suppose, young warlock, you are here because of the knights speaking in tongues?"

Paralelsky frowned at the dragon. "Don't you '_young warlock_' me!"

Kilgarrah looked up from his notes, pushed his reading glasses down his snout, and deduced, with a pang of something a little like disappointment, that it was in fact not Merlin come to visit him. "You are not the young warlock."

"Oh wow. You really are all-knowing." Paralelsky gave the dragon a slightly disbelieving look, and then said, "You ought not to call him a warlock, you know."

"And why would that be?"

"Because the word 'warlock' originally only meant 'oath-breaker', and actually acquired its diabolic meaning in 16th Century Scotland."

"Oh," was all Kilgarrah had to say to that.

There was a horrible gashing, mashing moaning sound, as the wall behind them crumbled, and a giant gaping plot hole (that had previously been masked by some frilly blue curtains) expanded.

"Well now look what you've done!" Kilgarrah sighed, rummaging around behind him for his sewing box. "I only just put those curtains up…"

"What? How is that my fault?"

"What you are currently looking at is a rupture in the fundamental plot-character continuum of the narrative. Every time some person, like yourself, reveals something to a character that fatally undermines their or the reader's belief in the story in some way, it fractures. It has been there for some time, and I can only assume that it will eventually form some kind of giant plot hole and attract all sensible plot lines in there, pulling apart the very fabrication of the narrative, and leaving us all spouting senseless gibberish."

The crack in the continuum splintered further at these words.

"Curious…" Kilgarrah muttered to himself. "Perhaps we are not supposed to mention it. Let's try pretending it isn't there…"

"Oh… Okay… I'm sorry," Paralelsky mumbled, thoroughly unable to digest that she might be responsible for the destruction of Camelot.

"Well… yes. Quite. Yellow or pink, do you think?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Yellow or pink? Of course, the pink has polka dots, but the yellow has bunnies… There's something very homely about bunnies, I find."

Paralelsky had to agree.

"I had a bunny, once. Flopsy, I called him."

"Like Flopsy, Mopsy Cottontail and Peter, from Peter Rabbit?" Paralelsky queried.

"No. What are you talking about?"

"Never mind."

"I did love dear little Flopsy. But of course mother insisted that I eat him. She was a dreadful hag, my mother. I miss her terribly…"

As Kilgarrah spoke, he set about sewing his curtains in place.

"Of course, being the last of my kind - _damn that Uther! _- pardon my French - _damn the French!_ - pardon my patriotism, I suppose one gets used to these things…"

"What things? Curtains?"

"Why yes… Yes… Curtains. No! No. Not curtains. Losing people. Not people, of course. That's just the expression. Couldn't care less about losing people, a person dies? Hooray. One fewer on my list of people to roast at my celebratory Freedom Barbecue when that runt of a warlock finally lets me free…"

"Hasn't he already done that?"

Kilgarrah frowned. "Hm?"

"Hasn't Merlin already set you free?"

"Oh no! SHHHH!" Kilgarrah cried, lurching forwards, trying to stop the rip in the plot-character continuum from ripping further, but it was too late. "How many times must I tell you? Stop pointing out the author's mistakes!"

There was a slight hiss from the rip as it fractured a little more.

**.**

Lancelot and Gwaine had barrelled (literally, in Gwaine's case) into the nearest appropriately-sized cupboard, at which point it had promptly occurred to both of them that Gwaine was still encased in his wooden prison.

They sat in silence for a minute, contemplating their situation.

"Well," Gwaine announced. "At least it's something new."

"Gwaine, I can't escape the feeling that you're using me," Lancelot declared rather suddenly, tears forming on the surface of his deep, brown, stupidly noble eyes.

"Oh for the love of… You want to have this conversation now, Lancelot? With me with my head in a barrel? And _here_? In a cupboard?"

Lancelot gasped suddenly, his hand flying out to his heart as if in tremendous pain. "Don't you know where we are?"

"In a cupboard," Gwaine repeated, slowly.

"This is not just any cupboard, Gwaine. This is the cupboard where our relationship began! This is _our_ cupboard!"

Before Gwaine could say something extremely rude in response, the door to _their_ cupboard was swung open by one Nicicia, who looked more than a little dishevelled from having to run half way around the kingdom in search of them.

"This place…" she gasped, hands on her knees, panting for breath, "…looks a lot smaller on the screen…"

"Of course it does," Gwaine agreed (with, naturally, no idea as to what it was he was agreeing to) patting her on the back as he scrambled out of the cupboard, happy simply to have Nicicia as an obstacle between him and Lancelot's efforts to force him to deal with their relationship issues.

"What? You think you can just get out of the cupboard and everything just goes away? You're going to have to deal with our problems, Gwaine! People don't just go away!" Lancelot bawled, throwing his hands up in the air and getting really rather angst-y, in a truly un-Lancelot-like display of emotion.

"Oh really?" Gwaine sneered. "I thought 'just going away' was your forte."

Lancelot blinked back tears. "That," he whispered, pointing at Gwaine. "Was uncalled for."

And then Sir Lancelot du Lac turned tail and fled down the corridor, blubbering as he went, feeling as if no one in the world understood him or cared about him.

Gwaine turned to regard Nicicia. "Hi, I'm Sir Gwaine," he introduced himself, flicking back his barrel majestically.

"I know. We've already been introduced. I'm Nicicia?"

"Ah yes… You're one of Vegetables' friends, aren't you? I like Vegetables…" Gwaine's eyes took on that same, strange glassy look that Nicicia was sure she had seen before…

"_Ouch!"_

Nicicia and Gwaine looked around them, searching for the source of the complaint.

"_OUCH!"_

"Did you hear that?"

"_Ow!"_

"I think so."

"_Oww-eey!"_

"There it was again!"

"_My poor, sore foot!"_

"Am I going mad?"

"Well yes, but I don't think that's really the issue here…"

"_Ooomph!"_

"That sounds an awful lot like…"

"Merlin!" they both cried in unison, turning around to find said warlock (not that we should be calling him that, of course - is that a ripping sound I hear?) sitting in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the cupboard just vacated by Gwaine and Lancelot.

"Merlin…" Gwaine muttered, regarding his sorry excuse for a friend, who looked rather flat. "Were you in there the whole time?"

"Yes!" Merlin squeaked.

"Oh dear," Nicicia reached down to pat him on the head. "You seem horribly squashed."

"Mmmphadroosiibbooplbat," was exactly what Merlin huffed in response.

"I'm terribly sorry, mate," Gwaine mumbled, trying to peel what remained of Merlin off the floor of the cupboard. "But what were you doing in the cupboard in the first place?"

Merlin's flat face flushed bright red. "Arthur put me here… He said to wait for him…"

Gwaine chuckled, and picked his friend up. "Not as sweet and innocent as you look, eh?" Gwaine smirked, but then felt bad about mocking Merlin when he caught sight of the indentations carved across his friend's face. "Sorry about squashing you with my barrel… We should probably get you to Gaius'…" he decided, after he had flung him over his shoulder.

"It's my unborn child you ought to be worrying about," Merlin grumbled, fidgeting around on Gwaine's shoulder. "This is a very undignified way to be carried around."

Nicicia, who had up till now been content to simply observe the interaction, felt the need to interject. "The way he's carrying you is very becoming for a damsel in distress, actually."

Gwaine snorted.

"And what's this about an unborn child? Did Gwaine squash your brain as well? Hey, that rhymes…"

"Gwaine… brain… Hmm. You're right." Gwaine whistled as he strolled, wondering what else his name rhymed with: _pain… slain… train… gain… main… _Yes. It was a good name. Perhaps he should write a poem about himself. Vegetables would certainly like that…

Merlin nursed his belly, unaware of Gwaine's inner (slightly moronic) monologue. "Not as far as I'm aware. Have those tap-dancing monkeys always been there?"

Nicicia frowned.

"Kidding."

"Tough crowd," Gwaine commented, rubbing Merlin's calf consolingly as his joke went unappreciated. _Domain… regain… quatrain…mane…_

"How could you possibly be pregnant? Did a spell backfire or something? I thought this was a family show… That's a bit of a sensitive area for family TV, isn't it?"

"What's TV?"

"Errm… Nothing."

"So how on earth are you pregnant?"

"I think the more important question is: whose is it?" Gwaine cut across.

"Yes," Nicicia agreed. "That too."

"It's Arthur's. But we haven't… _you know_…"

"SO HOW ON EARTH ARE YOU PREGNANT?"

There was strange rumbling sound that seemed to shake the very walls of the castle, emanating from far down below its foundations.

"What was that?" Nicicia asked, trying to steady herself, but finding that the others had already moved on.

"Dunno," Merlin shrugged. "But it happens all the time."

"Gwaine's a great name," Gwaine decided to inform them. "It's very poetic. I think you should call your baby Gwaine."

"No offence Gwaine, but I'd really rather not. I don't even know how to spell your name. Percy and Elyan were arguing about it the other day; Percy was sure there were two 'a's, and they were both before the 'i', but Elyan said he was talking out of his you-know-what, and that there weren't any 'e's, either. How _do_ you spell it?"

Gwaine shrugged. "I'm not too sure. Back home they all called me Gawain, but you lot have been pretty insistent in spelling it 'G-W-A-I-N-E'. I couldn't care less, to be honest."

Merlin considered this. "What if it's a girl?"

"Call her Gwainerilla."

**.**

Back in the council room, House had passed instead of hours (which had been particularly confusing; no one had been quite sure how to respond to the sarcastic, American doctor stomping along with a walking stick, so they simply pretended they hadn't seen him) and the first of Camelot's Punctuation Tribunals was not going particularly well.

In retrospect, Gaius could see that leaving Geoffrey of Monmouth - who, bless him, had all the political charisma of a sullen block of butter left to melt in the sun - was perhaps not one of his smarter ideas.

The exclamation marks, who had been the rowdiest lot from the start, were utterly unwilling to co-operate, and had formed their own radical punctuation league, Punctuation Against (that was as far as they had got with the name, as they hadn't yet decided what it was they were against, every time they tried to make their minds up they ended up getting very over-excited about it and yelling at each other in extremely loud voices) or the PA.

They had taken up the right-hand corner of the room as their headquarters, and were attempting to recruit the capital letters to their cause, and the latter end of the alphabet, who felt that they were often ignored by A, B, C and co., were not unsympathetic.

Gaius was not too concerned about them; from what he had overheard whilst snooping (which he was, coincidentally, awfully good at) their plans, thus far, consisted off nothing more than jumping out at people and yelling 'Boo!'.

It was the apostrophes he was particularly wary of. Or should he call them the apostrophe's? Or the apostrophes'? They were crafty little monsters, and - having worked out that people naturally seemed to find them confusing - had set about constantly redefining themselves, so no one was ever entirely sure whether or not they were using them properly, even when they were.

The pound signs had simply gone on strike, and no one wanted to be the one to point out to them that their resistance didn't make one jot of difference, since they weren't medieval legal tender. They simply sat in the corner, with their placards and their banners, chanting _"Pay the Price for Justice!" _which didn't rhyme and wasn't catchy.

They had been joined by the odd dollar or euro sign, but their hearts clearly weren't in it (metaphorically speaking, of course).

And the bracketed roman numerals, who had gained a surprising amount of legal knowledge from being repeatedly used in statutes, had demanded the declaration of a Punctuation Rights Act. Or possibly a Punctuation Rights' or even Right's Act, depending on how contrary the apostrophes were feeling.

These fiendish bracketed roman numerals were drawing up endless amounts of legally binding contracts, and having Geoffrey of Monmouth - _of all people!_ - sign them in place of Uther, having declared both the King of Camelot and his heir apparent to be not of sound mind, and were attempting to insist that, in every new book published in Camelot, there be at least 3000 instances of superfluous punctuation to provide continuity of employment.

And whose fault was all of this?

Why, Geoffrey's, of course.

It was Geoffrey who had been left in charge, it was Geoffrey who had failed to get all sides negotiating peacefully, and it was Geoffrey who had crumbled like the weak-willed librarian he was when the quotation marks started demanding control over their own speech.

None of this was Gaius' fault at all.

Not at all.

There wasn't a thing he could have done to prevent things ending the way they had; not a thing.

Not even if he had occasionally looked up from his laptop, stopped playing bubble trouble, and attempted to smooth over the negotiations.

His conscience eased, Gaius slipped away unnoticed as a hash grabbed hold of Geoffrey's collar, and insisted that he start taking it seriously, and stop making jokes about illegal substances, to which poor Geoffrey had no idea how to respond.

Gaius knew he could do nothing now.

He might as well head back to his chambers, where the signal was far better…

**.**

Meanwhile, Camelot's greatest minds were partway through solving the crisis they weren't supposed to know they were facing.

"Eep!" Gwen exclaimed, reeling back from the pain as she stabbed her fingertip with the needle once again. "This hurts…"

"That is because you are no seamstress, my dear," Kilgarrah observed.

"No," Gwen corrected him, through gritted teeth. "It's because I can't see what I'm doing."

"Look with the eyes of the soul, young Gwen, not with the eyes of the body."

"That's a load of…"

"Gwen!" Paralelsky cut her off. "I thought you were the nice, polite one."

"Oh, really? That's funny. Everybody's got an opinion! Half of you people have been calling me all a floozy! I don't even know what that means… But it doesn't sound nice. Either it's a kind of bird, or it's an insult. I think it's the latter."

"It is," Arrow'Nash pointed out, not sounding even the least bit remorseful.

"I wish I'd never looked at the horrid taplop thing of Gaius'! Wretched, wretched taplop!" Gwen exclaimed, suddenly bursting into tears.

"Guinevere," Kilgarrah warned her. "Now is not the time for hormones. Now is the time for a neat open seam. Although, really, I think a French -_ dragon's breath to the French!_- seam would be better…"

"How can you tell what seam I am or am not doing when you're not looking at it?" Gwen asked, sounding incredulous.

"I can hear it in the stitch, darling."

"Well I have no desire to try and sew a French seam without looking at it, thank you very much," interjected Arrow'Nash, who was thoroughly fed up of the entire argument.

"Why aren't we allowed to look at it again?" Paralelsky inquired, hand still over eyes.

Kilgarrah sighed. "Because by acknowledging that it is there, we are acknowledging that the author has made faults and so we only make it worse. We must simply pretend that it doesn't exist."

"But…" Paralelsky objected. "But you're fixing it! You're only pretending not to know…"

"It's only a plot hole. It doesn't know that."

Paralelsky decided questioning the Great Dragon any further simply wouldn't do her brain any good, so she changed the topic of conversation. "What's that you're reading there…?" she queried, peeking over his scales, and being thoroughly shocked by what she saw. "Wow! You really are the slashdragon…"

Kilgarrah looked as if he was about to respond, but then he frowned. "Slashdragon? Who is this slashdragon?"

"Errm…"

"Are you saying that there is another out there like me? That I am not truly the last of my kind?"

"Errrrmm…" Paralelsky didn't have the heart to say that Kilgarrah had simply misheard her, and that the slashdragon was a (not particularly kind) nickname for him, so she simply hedged.

"That is marvellous news! Raw!"

"What?"

"Raw!"

Paralelsky frowned.

"Pardon me," Kilgarrah patted his chest, and looked a little embarrassed. "I meant to roar."

The rip in the plot-character continuum behind them slipped a little from beneath the seamstresses' fingers as it grew.

"Ow!" Gwen squealed once again, causing Arrow'Nash to sigh.

"Honestly… Why aren't you wearing a thimble?"

"I am! It's not that finger I'm stabbing! How are you managing to do it?"

"The trick is to not think about doing it."

"Oh," Gwen considered this proposition. "That makes about just little enough sense to probably be right."

"I'm running out of casual thread…" Arrow'Nash mumbled, looking down at her reel.

"Casual thread?"

"Causal thread… Causal thread. What did I say?"

"Casual thread."

"Oh. Stupid author. Use spell check!"

"Arrow'Nash!" Gwen exclaimed, as the hole ripped again, undoing all of her hard needlework.

"Hehe," she scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. "Sorry…"

"Actually… I'm running out too," Gwen observed, with a frown, "We should go back up to your chambers and get some more."

"Okie dokie!" Arrow'Nash quipped, jumping to her feet and skipping off.

Gwen dragged herself up and turned to wave goodbye to Paralelsky and the dragon, who had begun a game of chess while she had had her back turned. "We'll be back in a minute; remember not to look at it."

"Look at what?" asked Paralelsky conspiratorially, as she took out one of Kilgarrah's pawns.

Gwen smirked, and jogged up the path into the castle after Arrow'Nash.

"I mean… I just couldn't believe it. Those people don't even know me, and they were being so mean. It's not as if _I_ seek all these different men out, they come looking for me… I don't ask them to kiss me; they just sort of do it…"

"Okay, stop right there!"

"Right here?" Gwen asked, halting in front of an alcove and sounding slightly perplexed.

"It doesn't matter where you stop."

"But you just said…"

"I meant stop _talking_!"

"Oh… Well then you should have said…"

"Well you're just a regular genius now, aren't you?"

Gwen thought about this. "Yes. Yes I am, I suppose."

"That was supposed to be an insult. You're very difficult to insult, do you know that? You always think people are trying to be nice."

"That's because they usually are. Why were you insulting me? Have I done something to offend you?"

"You are so annoying! You make it so hard to be mean to you, do you know that?"

"Why would you want to be mean to me?"

Arrow'Nash threw her hands up in frustration and squealed. "Because you can't make your mind up! Because you just kiss Merlin, then you love Arthur… then Lancelot comes along and you think '_Hmmm, alright, I'll have summa that_'! Make your mind up, girl!"

"But…" Gwen mumbled, tears welling up in her eyes, her lip trembling. "I thought we were friends…"

Arrow'Nash refused to look at Gwen any longer. She just couldn't be mean to her whilst looking her in the eye; in the flesh, Gwen was so adorable she just radiated cuddliness.

At that very moment, Lancelot appeared, stalking down the corridor, his eyes lined with black in true Morgausian fashion, and his knightly garb replaced with head-to-toe black.

"Lancelot!" Gwen cried, running up to him and tugging on his sleeve. "Arrow'Nash is being so mean to me, you still love me, don't you Lancelot?"

Lancelot turned to observe Gwen, a dull, blank expression in his eyes. "I love no one. I am an empty, emotionless void of nothingness, and you could never hope to understand me and how wretched I feel."

Gwen's breath hitched. For a second it seemed as though nothing was going to happen, and Lancelot was disappointed that the bearing of his black, black soul had had no effect on her. Then she burst into a fit of tears and ran away.

Lancelot grinned proudly to himself, but wiped the look off his face as soon as he saw Arrow'Nash observing him.

"I feel no emotion," he assured her. "I am a pit."

"OK."

Lancelot looked at Arrow'Nash expectantly, waiting for her to respond to his news that life and everything in it was dead to him.

She scratched her chin thoughtfully.

"Leon's just lemon without an 'm' in it."

Lancelot blinked. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

**.**

Gaius was settling down happily at his workbench, plugging his laptop into the wall (don't ask), when in burst a colourful array of strange people.

There were the faceless ones - Elizakiwi, YOUTHFULwolfie, magnusrae, Kitty O and Whirlwind421 - and they were accompanied by Elyan, Leon and Percival.

"Just what exactly is going on here…?" Gaius began, removing his reading glasses and snapping the lid to his laptop shut, so they couldn't see his new high score.

Everybody paused for a second and shivered. "Is there a draught?" asked Elizakiwi.

"Yes... as a matter of fact," Gaius mumured. "What do you want?"

"The knights have all started speaking sort of like Americans," YOUTHFULwolfie explained, crossing her arms. "But not like any Americans I've ever heard…"

"Like Americans, you say?" Gaius chuckled to himself. "I'll just go see if I can find some 'erbs to deal with the problem…"

No one got the joke.

"No need to get yourselves in a tiswas, fellows," Leon announced rather suddenly.

"A tiswas?" Kitty O queried, with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes. A tiswas. An argy-bargy?" Leon continued, brushing himself off and eyeing Elyan's trousers most critically. "Chuffing 'eck! Doesn't that clobber just flummox you?"

"I say!" declared Percy. "They make you look like a right berk; a wazzock of the first order."

"Alright, alright. Belt up, would you?"

Gaius had frozen midway through reaching up to grab some lotions and potions, and was now gazing at them in sheer wonderment.

magnusrae gawped. "This is ridiculous…"

A piece of parchment zipped down as angrily from the ceiling as an inanimate object can.

It read: _"There's just no pleasing some people, is there? You say there two American, you say their to English… I can't win."_

"Nobody actually said the knights were too English," pointed out YOUTHFULwolfie, not certain as to why the floor began rumbling as she spoke.

"So…" Elizakiwi kicked her heels together in an attempt to fill the awkward silence. "This was all the author's fault?"

"I guess so…" Whirlwind421 shrugged.

"If you ask me, the whole plan was a bit of a damp squib."

Another piece of parchment, this time folded up into a paper aeroplane, flew straight out of the air and hit Percy smack in the middle of the head. This one said: _"Yeah well no one did ask you, did they?"_

"Ooh!" exclaimed Leon. "Someone's feeling mardy."

"Oh," murmured Gaius, taking in the madness around him. "Carp."

At that moment, Nicicia and Gwaine appeared at the door to the physician's chambers, with a distinctly shapeless Merlin dangling in between them.

"Double carp."

Nicicia frowned and rubbed her shoulders. "Is there a draught in here?"

"Dude!" Whirlwind421 exclaimed, pointing at Merlin in sheer wonderment.

"Ah!" Merlin whimpered, looking about him in fear. "Where? Where's the druid?"

"Don't whimper," Kitty O instructed Merlin, as she helped the others to lay him flat on the ground. "It looks weak. I hate whimpering…"

"She said 'dude' not 'druid'," pointed out Gwaine, much more helpfully.

"What happened!" Whirlwind421 exclaimed, causing everyone to frown at her.

Flat!Merlin shuddered on the floor. "It's happening again; the punctuation is running amok…"

Kitty O rolled her eyes, and stuck a question mark in Whirlwind421's mouth instead. "She's just not concentrating. SOmetimEs SHe maKEs mistAKes when she typES."

At this point, Merlin descended into mad hysteria, believing the punctuation truly had turned on them again.

"No, it's just her speech," Whirlwind421 assured them. "It Does tHIS fOr nO obvious REASon occasionally." She turned to smirk at her friend, who was scowling.

"But the punctuation _has_ turned on us," Gaius pointed out, causing everybody else to glare daggers at him. "Geoffrey mucked up teh tribunals."

"ORLY?" inquired Elizakiwi.

"YARLY," Gaius assured her.

"NOWAI," Elizakiwi insisted.

Gaius paused, squinted at this girl, considering whether or not he should ask her the question he was dying to. "What the hell is a Hufflepuff?"

Gaius waited with baited breath, hoping that she would give him the response he was hoping for.

Elizakiwi grinned. "Hufflepuffs are particularly good finders."

"Does anyone know where I can find a rocket ship? I need one to get to Mars."

"What do you want with a rocket ship? What business do you have on Mars?"

"PIGFARTS!" Gaius screeched suddenly, with his signature flailing jazz hands.

He and Elizakiwi then apparently decided to burst spontaneously into song. "Pigfarts Pigfarts here I come; Pigfarts Pigfarts yum, yum, yum…"

"If you don't mind?" magnusrae inquired, tapping her foot. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but Merlin could currently be used as a wall-hanging."

"Ah… yes…" Gaius flushed a little, and rummaged about under his bed for just the thing. "Here it is!"

Gaius brandished his balloon pump, shoved it's end in Merlin's mouth and instructed Percival to push.

Percival seemed to be dubious, but, to his credit, attempted it as best he could. "I'm feeling a bit baffled meself," Percy informed them all. "Is this what it's supposed to do?"

Merlin began to swell up like a balloon.

"Um…" Nicicia nudged him with her foot, and turned to look at Gwaine, who simply shrugged. "I don't know."

"How did he end up like this?" YOUTHFULwolfie inquired.

"Ah, that's my fault," Gwaine admitted, with a nod of the barrel. "I sat on him."

"He was in a cupboard… Waiting for Arthur…" Nicicia made gestures with her hands try to convey the rest of her meaning.

"Ew!" exclaimed Whirlwind421.

Kitty O began to wretch, which was incredibly unattractive.

Nicicia frowned at Kitty O. "Should she be doing that? She looks wretched…"

"Hm? Oh… She's done it before." Whirlwind421 gave Kitty O a cursory glance. "I think it's just a typo."

And then, suddenly, Merlin's mouth slid off the end of the pump, and he went whizzing all around the room like a dying balloon, emitting a high-pitched squealing sound.

Gaius rolled his eyes, and suddenly noticed that Elyan (who had been being uncharacteristically quiet) was sitting in the corner, rocking backwards and forwards, and at the strange squeaky sound, suddenly ran from the room, covering his ears with his hands.

Nobody took any notice of it.

They were too busy trying to work out where Merlin had landed.

Elyan ran out into the corridor, and bumped straight into a tearful Gwen, who mumbled something incoherent about nobody in the whole world loving her except for him.

Elyan, who was on the verge of a mental breakdown, said nothing.

Nothing was not the right thing to say, and Gwen scampered off, blubbering even more than before.

Elyan sank to the floor, resting his head between his hands, and pulled the strange _Dictionary_ from his coat pocket.

Gaius crept out of the room and observed Elyan with interest. "What's wrong, my boy?"

"This!" Elyan exclaimed, thrusting the book under his nose. "This is what's wrong!"

Gaius read the title, "_A Dictionary of Old English_. You're learning to speak Old English?"

"No, I_ should_ be speaking Old English! Or Old French or Old Welsh or Latin or something… But not what I am speaking!"

"Elyan, what are you talking about?"

"I'm a fictional character on a 21st Century television show!" he blurted out suddenly, holding his head as though the knowledge pained him. "I don't exist!"

Gaius grinned. "That's excellent."

"Did you not hear me properly? I said I don't exist."

"Exactly! Marvellous, my boy. Simply marvellous."

Elyan shook his head, came to his feet, and concluded that the old physician was even crazier than he was. "You're mad."

"Quite possibly. That's not the point. You see, you had to figure it out for yourself."

"That you're mad?"

"No, that you're not real. I couldn't have _told_ anybody… Not only does it make your brain hurt quite a lot," he tapped Elyan's head for emphasis, "But it also does funny things to the plot-character continuum." The ground beneath them shook in confirmation of this. "Plus it just isn't very believable, is it?"

Elyan shook his head.

"We're going to have to get training you up; you shall be a staunch ally, my boy! I'll teach you everything I know!"

Gaius hooked his arm around Elyan's neck, and they began strolling off.

"When did you first figure it out?"

"Hm? What? Oh. Ages ago. I used it to leave my body, renegotiate the storyline… Terribly useful, this sort of knowledge. Terribly useful… We'll have to get you conquering the effects of the virus."

"What virus?"

"Have I not explained that part yet? I forget…"

"Nothing about a virus, so far…"

A large pop-up appeared in front of them and Gaius ninja-kicked the 'close' button, before continuing on. "Well then, I shall have to get explaining, shan't I? But first, meet M. Diane and Ringo'simaginarycat. They're your new team."

**.**

If everything was topsy-turvy in the land of fanfiction, then everything was turvy-topsy in the land of real life.

Randy the knight landed, on his rear end, in the middle of a place that did not look even remotely like Camelot.

He was going to have to begin his witch-hunt immediately, he could see this. These people were clearly diabolical.

He went in unaided, unarmed and not having thought any of it through properly. But Uther would reward him for his efforts; he felt it in his bones.

As Jissai sat on a bus, checking his emails, and watching a strange man dressed in medieval clothing being dragged away by two police officers whilst screaming "Burn the witch!" he knew the time had come to call in the rest of The League.


	15. Chapter 14

**A/N: Hello! I has a scarily long chapter just for youses! It has taken me ages to write but it's been fun. Thanks for all the reviews and support and general love so far! Anyone who has not made it into _The League_ yet, if you have ever reviewed the story ever (even if you're not still reading it now... so, err, you're not reading this note. But that's your problem pal) then you shall be in it! Promise! Even if it's just a cameo to someone who left a one line smiley face or something. As you can imagine, it takes time to put that many people in one story! So be patient with me, please. Now... Time for credit! Lupa Dracolis suggested to me that House should give the knights inferiority complexes by berating them, Eliza Williams said pregnant pauses should be walking round Camelot, Cherrytree007 said I should use potatoes/tomatoes and high-heeled shoes as a plot hole, A. Nony Mouse thought that Merlin should hoarde Arthur's punctuation and make increasingly strange demands for the wedding, including that Arthur wear THE HAT and the song (you'll know which one I mean once you read the chapter) is _You're the Voice_ by John Farnham. That ought to mean something to you, Merlin fans! ;P If anyone else has given me an idea and I have used it and forgotten to mention it, please say something :) It's just that I've been finishing this chapter all day and now my brain hurts. Also, Storylover456 - I have accepted your challenge and it _will_ happen. Next chapter ;) I had way too much madness going on already. I think that's everything. If it's not, I don't think I care! Wooh! On with the chapter!**

"We have," sang a disembodied voice, "the chance to turn the pages over."

"Did you hear that?" Nicicia asked Gwaine, who frowned up at her, not appreciating being interrupted midway through his writing.

"We can write what we want to write," the voice - with no apparent owner - continued.

Gwaine huffed. "If only," and turned back to the limerick he was attempting to compose for Vegetables. As it turned out, there might be many things that rhymed with Gwaine, but none of them conveyed his feelings very well.

"We gotta make ends meet before we get much older," the voice continued to croon.

Nicicia turned her nose up at what she thought was the direction of the warbling. "Gwaine…" she insisted, in her most patronising tone. "I asked you if you heard that."

"We're all someone's daughter. We're all someone's son."

Nicicia frowned, because she thought that was simply stating the obvious.

"How long can we look at each other," it continued. "Down the barrel of a gun?"

Gwaine paused, and crossed out the word _'refrain_'. "No. I didn't," he decided, although it was a blatant lie. He had come to the conclusion that it was better to simply pretend that these things weren't happening.

Nicicia shrugged; she didn't care enough to pursue it. If the voice was really in her head, then at least it would be in good company…

"I found him!" Whirlwind421 exclaimed suddenly, attracting the attention of the remaining occupants of the physician's chambers, all of whom immediately stood to attention, and crept over to observe Whirlwind421's discovery.

And there, in the palm of her hand, lay a deflated, disgruntled and distinctly disorientated Merlin.

"He looks knackered," Leon observed.

"Indeed," agreed Percy, who had at some point managed to acquire a top hat and a monocle, and was setting about straightening both. "I shall fetch the pump forthwith!"

Leon winced. "Is this really what you think of the English?" The non-English authors in the room examined their shoes guiltily and murmured quiet denials. "What a load of utter codswallop…"

**.**

"Farther? Farther? FARTHER!" Arthur threw his hands up to the sky dramatically, in the hopes that it might get him what he wanted when all else had failed - it seemed to work an alarming amount of the time - but on this occasion he had no luck.

He shrugged, assumed his father was merely playing some game the rules of which no one had deemed it worth their time to explain to him, and returned to the castle, deciding he would go and look for someone different to bother instead.

"Has anyone seen Merlin?"

A horribly startled OC looked up at him, down at her shoes, back up at him again and then to her left and to her right, hoping someone else might jump in and save her.

Arthur tapped his foot impatiently; he didn't have time for shy serving staff today.

"Have you seen Merlin?" he repeated, more sternly, trying to channel all of his princely authority into that one interrogative.

"Errm…" the OC murmured, in a voice so coarse it sounded like she was permanently coughing. "I'm not supposed to talk, Sire."

"What do you mean you're not supposed to talk? Where's Merlin? Has he put you up to this?"

The poor OC fidgeted nervously, and looked as though she might be about to cry, which would be incredibly difficult for her, as she was not built for crying; she had neither the emotional register nor the tear ducts. "I'm only a plot device, Sire; a background character. We're not supposed to talk to you, or anyone. Unless it's an emergency."

Arthur blinked. He definitely didn't have time for this. "It's an emergency," he assured her.

The words seemed to relieve the OC; Arthur could practically see the tension roll off her inadequately described face. "Oh," she sighed. "Well, in that case, I believe he's in the physician's chambers, my lord," she added a polite curtsey on the end, and scurried off, blending into the background in a manner so practised Arthur could swear on his life he would never be able to pick her out from the sea of faces again, in spite of having spoken to her.

Arthur stood, perplexed, in the corridor for a second, before deciding that he was going to forget the encounter had ever taken place. He seemed to be doing that an awful lot lately…

He charged off down the stairs to go and apprehend his fiancé, who had been almost offensively unenthusiastic about their wedding ceremony ever since Arthur had announced his intentions.

Arthur rolled his eyes.

_Honestly! It was almost as if Merlin didn't want to marry him…_

What a ridiculous notion.

_Who could not want to marry him?_

Arthur shoved the door to the physician's chambers open, and all of his comments, witty angry or otherwise, simply evaporated.

"Arthur…" Leon warned, holding out wary hands. "Keep your kecks on, there's no need to get brassed off. We all know Percy here's a diamond geezer; Merlin was on his last knockings and he needed Percy to stop him going all wonky…"

Arthur, unfortunately, understood none of this. He simply saw Percival and Merlin standing uncomfortably close, with Percival pumping something strange into Merlin's mouth.

"Unhand my fiancé, you fiend!" Arthur commanded, feeling for his sword at his side, and trying not to look stupid when he realised it wasn't there.

"You barm pot!" exclaimed Leon. "Weren't you pinning back your lug holes?"

Evidently Arthur was doing no such thing; he was still attempting to duel with Percy, in spite of him having left his sword at the Blacksmith's to be repaired.

"Where's your sword, mate?" Percy inquired, holding back Arthur's head with his large hand as Arthur tried to swipe at him.

"I left it at the smithy's to be repaired… _Someone_ was supposed to pick it up," he glared at Merlin, who glared right back, and muttered something about only being the damsel in distress when it suited his royal highness. "Well… Sword or no sword, I am still Prince Arthur! Prepare to be flicked into oblivion!"

There was an awkward moment as everyone wondered whether or not the author had simply misspelt something.

But no, apparently Arthur had meant what he had said; he set about flicking Percy's ears with great vigour.

"'Struth!" Percy exclaimed, rubbing at his red lobes. "Crikey! Ods Bodikin! Ecky thump! Cor blimey!"

"Arthur," Kitty O warned, tapping her foot. "I'm not sure Percival likes what you're doing to him, I think you ought to stop."

"Och aye the noo!" squeaked Percy in agreement.

Arthur scowled at Kitty O. "I don't like girls telling me what to do."

"Yeah? Well I don't like misogyny. No one's happy."

Arthur scowled some more. He didn't know what this '_misogyny_' was. Stupid girls, using words he didn't understand just to confuse him…

"Arthur?" magnusrae queried, slightly concerned by his glazed expression. "Are you going to stop flicking Percy now?"

Elizakiwi giggled from the corner. "That sounds funny…"

YOUTHFULwolfie shot her a _look_: "Dirty mind."

Elizakiwi shrugged. "You know you were thinking it too."

Arthur scowled even morerer. Stupid, stupid, stupid girls. "I'll stop flicking Percy," he announced. "But not because you told me to. I AM THE CROWN PRINCE OF CAMELOT!"

It sounded as though he was going to finish this - slightly idiotic - declaration with some kind of explanation, but he didn't.

Merlin rolled his eyes and decided to finish his sentence for him. "Because you're the Crown Prince of Camelot and you tell everyone else what to do, not the other way around… yadda yadda yadda. Can we go now?"

Arthur turned his fearsome scowl towards Merlin, hoping to scare some respect into his servant, but not seriously expecting it to work. "You're full of hot air, you know that Merlin?"

"Actually yes, I do."

There was a sharp intake of breath from YOUTHFULwolfie. "That was a bad joke."

Arthur seemed confused.

Merlin rolled his eyes some more. "I actually _am_ full of hot air, because Percy just pumped me full of it. Honestly Arthur…"

Arthur seemed even more confused.

Merlin's eye-rolling reached epic proportions. "Never mind."

"Wait… Are you telling me that Percival was not making improper advances towards Merlin?" Arthur concluded, dropping his hand from his knight's ear and becoming aware of how foolish he looked.

"Yar," clarified Leon, with a nod of the head.

Everyone squinted strangely at him, except for Percy, who apparently thought this was a perfectly intelligent response.

"I think he means 'yes'," Whirlwind421 offered, after a very very very very very very very long and slightly odd pause.

"Oh. Sorry for… err… flicking you…" Arthur clearly felt bashful.

Merlin made no attempt to hide the fact that he found this amusing.

"That's alright, mate. You just got the ab-dabs."

Arthur blinked stupidly. Nobody else did anything because they had all decided they were just going to stop bothering to do things that needed to be described using all sorts of flowery and unique adjectives that just took such a great deal of effort to communicate via facial expression.

"Right," muttered Arthur after another (not quite so long, but equally odd) pause.

They all shuffled about a bit from one foot to the other.

Merlin considered that this was a bit like what Camelot was like in between the big dramatic happenings - that seemed to occur every other week - people just stood around uncomfortably and stared at the ceiling, waiting for disaster to strike, which it always did.

Arthur coughed. "Well… I suppose Merlin and I'll be off then."

"Err… Excuse me? What do you mean _Merlin and I_? Do I not get to speak for myself?"

Arthur shot Merlin the kind of look that masters give to disobedient dogs. "Where would you get an idea like that?" He looked up accusingly to the people assembled in the room. "Who has been educating him?"

Funnily enough, no one responded.

"Was it you?" he demanded, pointing his finger right in the face of Kitty O, who considered biting it.

"That's right! Go ahead! Blame me!" she exclaimed dramatically, throwing her arms up to the sky and rolling her eyes. "Of course it was my fault. Everything is my fault. Since I got here, all you people have done is blame me for everything. It's my fault Merlin's pregnant, it's my fault Whirlwind's plot hole didn't work, it's my fault Gaius got barred from Wikipedia…"

Either her speech had drawn to a close or she was just taking a breath. Arthur feared it was the latter. Since he hadn't yet properly encountered the sarcasm of American teenagers, he assumed that what he had just extracted from Kitty O was a blatant confession of guilt. She looked like the guilty sort, anyway.

"Take her to the dungeons!" he instructed Percy and Leon.

"Look out! Here come the Rozzers!" exclaimed one or other of them. But no one was paying any attention.

"You can't send Kitty O to the dungeons!" protested Whirlwind421 dramatically.

"I can and I will."

"If you want to send her to the dungeons, you'll have to send me too!" Whirlwind421 continued, flinging her arms about.

"Alright. Restrain her Gwaine."

"Restrain!" Gwaine announced suddenly, scribbling like a maniac and chewing on his tongue. "That's it! Thank you!"

"It's time for you to meet my friend pain!" announced YOUTHFULwolfie, as Whirlwind421 and Kitty O gallantly resisted their arrest. She grabbed from somewhere at her side a mace pepper spray, which she then began to squirt liberally in people's faces.

"Icksnae Pepprrea Spraaea," Merlin whispered, his eyes flashing gold, causing the can to clatter, empty, to the floor.

Everybody gawped at him.

And then at Arthur.

And then at Merlin again.

Merlin whistled.

"Didn't you see that?" magnusrae asked eventually, appearing out from the shadows with a look of sheer disbelief on her face.

Arthur sniffed. "See what?"

"I guess that answers that question."

"How could he _not_ have seen that?" whispered Whirlwind421 to Kitty O.

Kitty O rubbed her eyes, staring disbelievingly at Arthur.

"Look," she murmured, after her eyes had un-focused. "Rub your eyes and look at him."

Whirlwind421 did as instructed.

"Woah," she murmured, staring at Arthur, who was now an outline of Arthur filled in with writing. The loopy swirls and spirals of typography appeared to be detailing his character traits. On his forehead was written the big, bold word **'grumpy'**, and across his heart it had been written _Guinevere _in swoopy, loopy writing, only this had been crossed out and MERLIN had been scrawled over it in a childish hand. There were numerous other bits and pieces drifting around, but what really caught their eye was the lettering strung around his middle like a sash that read, 'oblivious prat'.

"Ah," Whirlwind421 nodded, rubbing her eyes again. "I see."

"Well… go on then! Take them to the dungeons!"

"Tally ho, off we go!" (I think you can probably guess who said that).

"Oh… If you're taking people to the dungeons, you might as well take me too," decided magnusrae, with a yawn, who had grown bored of the physician's chambers and thought the dungeons would at least make for a nice change of scenery. She didn't see what the other three were so het up about anyway; it wasn't as if they wouldn't manage to escape from them.

"Where are the other two?" Arthur asked, having finally noticed that Elizakiwi and Nicicia had vanished. "Were they sorcerers?"

"Err… No," Whirlwind421 thought long and hard about this proposition. "At least, I don't think so. Were they sorcerers?"

"I'm pretty sure they weren't," agreed Kitty O, as her hands were bound behind her back.

"Me too. They didn't do anything sorcerer-y," magnusrae confirmed, binding her hands herself to save Percy and Leon the trouble.

YOUTHFULwolfie didn't say anything as she was tied up; she simply nodded in response, and glared menacingly, almost wolfishly, at her attackers.

"You don't know for sure?"

"No."

"How could you not?"

magnusrae shrugged. "It just never really came up."

Arthur looked gobsmacked, and turned to Merlin, who was trying to look serious, for support.

Merlin was definitely _not_ giggling. "Don't look at me like that. It's always the first thing I ask anyone new, right Gwaine?"

"Yep. Good little lad, that one, Arthur. You've trained him well."

"I've had enough of this," Arthur sighed, and no one disputed it. "Just take them away."

Now, this was the point at which, usually, Merlin would do or say something Merlin-y, such as: _'Actually, Arthur, I don't think that nice, but slightly odd girl who keeps calling me her boyfriend - whatever one of those is - is a sorcerer. Her friends seem perfectly pleasant, although they do like to yell, especially that one with the mace, and I think maybe you just need to go and have a good long pace somewhere and think things through carefully,' _and then, of course, everything would be alright.

"Save me, Merlin!" squealed Kitty O.

It was exactly this plea that stopped him from helping her.

He knew he recognised this girl from somewhere, he just couldn't quite place her, but he was certain he got some bad feelings in his stomach whenever he got too close.

He looked straight into her blank, featureless face and all he knew was that it made him want to cower behind Arthur for all he was worth.

Unfortunately for Merlin, Arthur was currently preoccupied. He was looking at an assembled bowl of potatoes and tomatoes sitting smack bang in the middle of Gaius' otherwise empty table.

"Merlin?"

"Yes?"

"Why is there a bowl of potatoes and tomatoes in the middle of the table?"

_Erk._

Merlin shrugged. "Have you never seen a fruit bowl before?"

"That's not fruit."

_Errk._

"Well, technically, tomatoes are a fruit."

"You're the expert, aren't you? You've had enough of them thrown in your face to know."

Merlin rubbed his cheekbones subconsciously. "I don't like tomatoes…"

"So why is there a bowlful of them in the middle of the table?"

_Errrk._

"Gaius likes to snack on them."

Arthur raised an eyebrow. He was nowhere near Gaius' league, but he got his point across. "He snacks on potatoes and tomatoes?"

_Errrrk._

"Why are we discussing Gaius' taste in snacks?"

Arthur picked a tomato up and tossed it from hand to hand, squishing it a little. "We discuss whatever I say we discuss, because I am Arthur, prince of Camelot."

It was probably good for Arthur's ego and Merlin's survival that Arthur couldn't hear what Merlin thought in response to that.

"Why potatoes and tomatoes, Merlin? I want to know."

_Errrrrrrk._

Merlin sighed and rolled his shoulders sorrowfully. "Oh… I don't know. They're probably just there so that someone can conveniently make some clever joke or something else that's essential to moving the plot on in some way… Unless you want to stay in the physician's chambers _for ever_."

Arthur shot Merlin _the look_. "I can think of ways we could pass the time…"

Gwaine groaned from the corner. "I'm still in the room!"

"What about us?" asked magnusrae, her voice sounding distant. "Have we left the room or not? I wasn't really very clear about that part."

"Yeah," agreed YOUTHFULwolfie, glowering up at the author. "Do you think you could be a bit more specific about what we're doing next time instead of leaving us lingering?"

"Standing around like lemons," added Leon, unhelpfully.

"Yeah. What he said," someone came out with, perfectly demonstrating the ambiguity that had got them all so irritated with the author in the first place.

"You can be in the room," Arthur gave in, his voice defeated. "But only for two minutes, maximum, and then you're going to the dungeons. Okay?"

"OK," chorused YOUTHFULwolfie, Whirlwind421 and Kitty O.

"There is no way you would have used the word 'okay'. This is the MIDDLE AGES," grumbled magnusrae.

At that point a plot hole suddenly exploded into the room and spat out a mildly surprised Jissai.

"Hello," he murmured, patting down his suddenly indescribable hair. He took in the assembled group; his allies being arrested very leisurely by two guards who apparently believed the whole thing was probably a 'fit up' anyway in the corner; the actual Merlin and Arthur bickering and holding hands, as if it was the most natural thing in the world; and Gwaine in the corner scribbling furiously on a piece of paper, muttering about 'butane', 'explain' and 'ingrain'.

"Why is there a bowl of potatoes and tomatoes on the table?" he asked eventually.

_Errrrrrrrrk._

"That does seem a little odd," agreed Whirlwind421.

_Errrrrrrrrrrrrk._

"Especially since neither potatoes nor tomatoes had been introduced to Britain yet," YOUTHFULwolfie went on, adding the final nail in the coffin.

_ERRRRRRRRRRRRRK._

A great ripping came from underneath them and on top of them and all around them, and suddenly they had to dodge out of the way as Merlin's bedchamber descended into a portal to the other world.

"Wow. All of that, just from potatoes and tomatoes?" asked Whirlwind421

"Well… we do eat a lot of them," answered Merlin, with a shrug.

The door to Merlin's chambers flew open with a thunderous, dramatic bang, and there, on the other side, stood Cherrytree007 and Lupa Dracolis. Cherrytree007 grinned and waved. "Hi. I'm potatoes, she's tomatoes."

Lupa nudged her in the side and started to sing, "You say tomato, I say tomato, you say potato, I say potato," but it didn't work because they're spelt the same and it's a phonetic joke, so everyone just looked at her strangely.

"Witches!" Arthur announced, pointing at them and gesturing for Leon and Percy to tie them up too.

Cherrytree007 seemed mildly disheartened by this turn of events. Lupa Dracolis just rolled her eyes and muttered _not again_.

Nobody asked her what that meant, because they were fairly confident they didn't want to know.

Jissai pulled his phone out of his back pocket and began flipping through his emails. "Wow. The signal's great down here…" he looked back up to Cherrytree and Lupa. "Can this portal stand any more authors?"

"Oh yeah," Cherrytree beamed. "There's loads of space. As long as they don't bring their socks. The socks are planning to destroy us all."

Jissai stored the latter part of this information in the bit of his brain that people don't talk about and moved on.

"Sorcery!" exclaimed Arthur eventually, looking down at the device in Jissai's hands. "You're one too."

"Errm…"

"Arrest them all! Do it now and take them _to the dungeons!_"

During this dialogue, Merlin's conscience had got the better of him, and he was just about to say something in defence of these peculiar but essentially well-meaning people.

That was when he noticed it.

The evil glint in this _Jissai_'s eye. It was the look of a person who liked to hurt. Merlin.

Merlin whimpered.

This did not endear him to Kitty O, who was already most seriously displeased that he had failed to do anything knight-in-shining-armour-ish. She had been trying to control his brain and make him fall in love with her again ever since she'd got into this wretched story, but apparently that just wasn't how things worked here. Stupid author.

Merlin hid behind Arthur, who would normally have told him he was being a gutless little girl, but, since this was badly-written, mushy-gushy slash, his sentimental side popped up out of nowhere and he told Merlin he thought he was being adorable.

So Merlin didn't help the authors as they were dragged off, kicking and screaming to their fate.

Oh well.

He could redeem himself and help the next batch of innocent people wrongly sentenced by Camelot's wacky justice system.

Besides, their 'fate' was essentially just going to consist of sitting in the cells for as long as they felt like it before deciding they fancied a break out. The guards on duty, Ian and Nigel, wouldn't mind. They were nice chaps.

Merlin whistled. Somewhere down the corridor in the distance YOUTHFULwolfie bellowed, "I demand my right to a fair trial!"

Merlin decided he was definitely safer with Arthur than with those _authors_, especially since Arthur had decided to stop picking on him for the moment.

"Come on, Merlin," Arthur commanded, slinging his arm around his manservant's neck. "You and I need to have a little chat."

"You know," replied Merlin, as they sauntered off down the corridor. "The word 'chat' wasn't invented until World War I."

A plot hole sprang up behind them and out hopped IceCreamDoodle13, who didn't have long to spend hopping up and down excitedly, pointing at Arthur and Merlin, squealing, "IT'S THEM! IT'S THEM! IT'S THEM!" before Arthur had some random guard throw her in the dungeons too.

"How did you know that anyway?" Arthur inquired, wondering what that strange rumbling noise was off in the distance.

Merlin shrugged. "Dunno."

Another plot hole pinged down from the ceiling like a pop-out camp bed, and Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe was suddenly on top of them, brushing her trousers off and apologising for the intrusion.

"That's quite alright, fair lady," Arthur accepted her apology with a wave of the hand. "Guards! Arrest her!"

"But," she cried, as she was dragged off, "I thought you said it was quite alright?"

Arthur ignored her. He turned to Merlin to ask him a serious question. However, instead of doing this, he was confronted by a rather catchy tune from seemingly out of nowhere.

"You're the voice, try and understand it."

Merlin frowned. He definitely did _not_ understand it.

"Make a noise and make it clear."

Merlin piled a second frown on top of his original frown. _Make _what_ clear?_

"Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o! We're not gonna sit in silence! We're not gonna live with fear! Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!"

Merlin turned to ask Arthur what exactly that had been about, but Arthur was too busy singing along.

"Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!"

Merlin groaned. He could tell he was going to be hearing that one again and again and again.

**.**

Gwen sat in her flowery little home, snuffling her way through a super-size box of Kleenex and cuddling the masses of fluffy, flea-infested plotbunnies (or plot bunnies, if you insist on being contrary and spelling them that way) that were wriggling around her, knocking over pots and pans and hopping up and down erratically, demanding attention.

She rocked back and forth repeatedly on her chair and hummed soothingly to herself, wondering why it was that nobody seemed to like her.

She was awfully nice.

But still nobody liked her.

Nobody ever seemed to write many stories about her.

She had sat in that hours for house and no one had even noticed she was gone.

She sighed, and drummed her fingers on the table. Her life was boring enough as it was. It would be nice if someone would add a little excitement to it by letting her go and have an adventure, but she hardly ever got to.

Although she supposed it could be worse. There were some characters who didn't even get tagged. They looked at her enviously as she swanned around with her '_Gwen/Guinevere_' hovering smugly over her head. At least she had that to be grateful for.

She picked up a passing bunny and snuggled it close into her chest.

It bit her finger.

She watched it hop away, and she saw the _Arthur/Merlin Romance _tag on its foot.

"Ah," she mumbled to herself. "Not even my rabbits like me."

That was when she decided she was going to do something to cheer herself up. She got up in the manner of strong, confident, chick-lit women, sent the plotbunnies around her fleeing for the bunny-flap she had installed in the side of the house and rummaged under her bed for the box she knew would make her smile.

Gwen slipped Morgana's old high-heeled shoes onto her feet and she felt like a million dollars. She didn't know what a million dollars was, but it felt good.

She strutted off down the streets of Camelot, occasionally getting the heels of the glitzy, strappy sandals wedged in between the paving stones, but she still looked pretty marvellous.

Percy and Leon had been cycling along on their recently acquired antique bicycles with massive front wheels and tiny rear wheels, discussing the merits of the recently elected Prime Minister, when the author apparently decided she could no longer be bothered with putting effort into Anglicising them (which was just as well, since she'd been doing an awful job of it).

All of a sudden, their bicycles collapsed beneath them, and they turned to observe one another's coats and tails, looking a little confused.

They then seemed to decide it was all rather funny.

"We're back, baby!" declared Percy, throwing his hands up in the air in his own fabulously camp style, causing Leon to giggle and nudge him in the side, muttering, "Shush, you. People are staring."

"Let them stare! I feel fab-u-lous!"

Gwen limped awkwardly (women suffer to be beautiful) towards Percy and Leon, who appeared to be standing in the middle of a puddle of cogs and various other things that, by all sensible logic, should not exist. She would ask Arrow'Nash about it later.

"What do you think of my new shoes, Percy?" she asked, lifting up the hem of her skirt to display the glittery heels acquired by some member of the costume department who was clearly about as concerned with historical accuracy as they were with radiator valves.

Percy frowned. "It's pronounced Percé. And those shoes are _so_ sixteenth century."

Gwen's lip started trembling.

Leon snapped his fingers in front of her and waggled his hips.

Gwen hobbled off in tears.

Neither Leon nor Percy felt bad about this immediately, but they would in a little while, when their consciences had had enough time to really bug them about it.

They were too distracted to be particularly concerned about morality right then, for, where Gwen had been, a large gap in reality suddenly burst out of nowhere, and out crawled XxMileena-chanxX, clutching a piece of cutlery in her hand.

"I say!" declared Leon, only to be patted on the back by Percy. "Sorry… I think I had a lump of _clich__é__d English_ stuck in my throat. I meant, 'Argh!'."

Percy nodded. "Much better," then he turned back to XxMileena-chanxX. "Now… who are you, and why are you carrying a spoon?"

Leon cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Percy, but it's clearly a fork."

"Um… What? It's definitely a spoon."

"Fork!"

"Spoon!"

"Fork!"

"_Spoon!"_

"FORK!"

"Gentleman, please," XxMileena-chanxX held her spork of DOOM up in surrender. "This is a spork. You're both right."

They seemed to relax.

"Now… I have come to save the day. Will you please take me to your headquarters?"

They looked at each other, and were just about to burst out laughing, when another person came out of the plot hole.

The wrong way round.

"Ouch!" exclaimed V. "I'm stuck!"

This was pretty much self-explanatory, since all that could be seen of V was a rear end and a pair of flailing legs. "Help!"

XxMileena-chanxX decided to respond to this plea by being extremely helpful and poking V with her spork.

Leon and Percy decided that now would probably be a good time to leave them to it.

As they strolled off, comparing boot sizes, weird words drifted towards them on the breezes.

"This time… We know we all stand together."

Percy smiled up at Leon, assuming he had spoken. "Wise words."

Leon frowned. "I didn't say anything."

"With the power to be powerful… Believing, we can make it better."

Percy wiped a tear from his eye and wrapped an arm around his friend's shoulder. "Isn't that just so moving and inspiring?"

Leon shrugged. "I'm not sure I get what it means, to be honest. And where is it coming from anyway?"

Percy pointed to his heart. "It's coming from in here, Leon. It's coming from in here."

**.**

Lancelot was busy skulking around the castle, avoiding everyone and thinking about how all of everybody else's problems paled in comparison to his misery, when he noticed the strange, gaping gap in Merlin's room.

He would have been intrigued, if he was capable of feeling.

He pulled at the tight, constricting fabric of his skinny black trousers that made him look as if he'd been taking fashion advice from Cenred.

All of a sudden, the plot hole emitted a strange, wailing noise, which sounded a little bit like a singing narwhal. How Lancelot would know what a singing narwhal sounded like was, of course, utterly beyond comprehension, and so, out came Storylover456, armed with a banjo.

Lancelot blinked.

"Is that a banjo?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"They're awfully good for bashing people over the head with. No one ever expects it, you see. Where's Jissai? He said all authors were urgently needed in Camelot."

Lancelot shrugged. "I care about nothing any more. Everything is meaningless."

Storylover456 wrinkled what would have been her nose, if her face hadn't been featureless and indescribable. "Alright then, if that's how you feel… Would you like the banjo? You sound like you could do with cheering up."

Lancelot's heart thudded in his chest, but he ignored it. Of course he wanted the stupid banjo. He wanted it more than anything he had ever wanted in his entire life. He could see it now, glimmering at him with its gaudy colours, looking so delightfully cheerful… Lancelot wanted to be cheerful again. He wanted to strum on the banjo and play the spoons and yodel and serenade Gwaine and square-dance. He wanted to cuddle that banjo close to his chest and whisper all of his secrets to it through the night and cradle it, rocking it back and forth until it fell asleep… Put simply, Lancelot was in love.

But Lancelot was also too noble and depressed for such silliness as love, so he said. "I don't want your stupid banjo." Even though every fibre of his being was crying out at him to just snatch the banjo from her and run.

"I think you do."

"No I don't," he answered, a little too quickly.

"Yes you do," she teased, wiggling the banjo.

"IDON'TWANTTHEBANJO!"

Storylover456 didn't seem convinced. "Yes. Screaming at me is going to convince me you don't want the banjo."

Lancelot stuck his tongue out at her.

"Well… I don't want the banjo," she announced, putting it down on the table, leaving it sitting temptingly in front of him.

Lancelot stared at it, his eyes growing disturbingly wide as he licked his lips.

Storylover456 coughed. "Are you going to relieve me of my banjo or are you going to eat it?"

Lancelot seemed uncertain. "If you're sure you don't want it…"

"It's a bit of a burden to have a banjo, to be blunt."

Lancelot paused, struggling to digest all that alliteration. "Oh… well…"

"You'd actually be doing me a favour if you took it from me, and I thought you were the one to come to if you wanted a favour done, since you were all noble. Or did I get it wrong? Is Gwaine the noble one?"

She had struck a chord there.

"Madam, I, Sir Lancelot, am far nobler than Sir Gwaine. I shall relieve you of this burdensome banjo, if that is what you desire?"

"Oh, yes. Definitely. That's it."

He grabbed the banjo and scarpered off down the corridor, giggling to himself. "It's _my_ banjo now!" He laughed manically, and then added, almost as an afterthought, "by the way, I do still hate the world and everything in it."

Storylover456 nodded at his rapidly retreating form. "Sure you do."

She turned around and chuckled to herself. "Messing with people is fun…"

**.**

"Oooooooh."

Lancelot stopped his gleeful running, and looked around himself, trying to ascertain the source of the oohing.

"We're all someone's daughter. We're all someone's son."

He scratched the back of his head. Just what was that supposed to mean?

"How long can we look at each other," Lancelot checked behind a nearby pillar, to see if it was coming from there. It wasn't. "Down the barrel of a gun?"

He shook his head, and decided not to think about it.

He positioned himself in as sorrowful a manner as he could on the closest window-ledge, strummed slowly on his banjo, and tried to sing a song about death and unhappiness and feeling lonely.

He glowered at the people passing by in the courtyard, hoping they would hear his soulful banjo-playing and think about the message behind his music.

Then the other song started up again.

"You're the voice, try and understand it. Make a noise and make it clear. Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o! We're not gonna sit in silence! We're not gonna live with fear! Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!"

In the distance, he could have sworn he could hear Arthur singing along.

Lancelot scowled. How dare this cheery gibberish interrupt his meaningful misery?

And then came the instrumental bag pipes accompanied by a tin whistle.

Lancelot gave in.

If you can't beat them, join them.

That's what his mother told him right before their village was ransacked and she joined the thieves, murdering her own husband and other children, abandoning her home for a life of crime. He had never told anyone, he lied and said she had died with everyone else; it was his secret shame. The burden he bore every day that made him such an annoyingly noble nuisance, and might one day be made into an incredibly touching movie starring some guy who looked a bit like him, but better.

Lancelot jived and bopped and wiggled, letting loose all of his emotions through the medium of dance. It looked a little weird, but it was probably good for him.

**.**

"Merlin?"

"Yes, Arthur?"

"Sit down. I want to have a chat."

"But the word 'chat'…"

"Don't start that again."

Merlin smirked.

"I just… I just feel… I feel like," Arthur drew a deep breath. "I feel like there's this question mark hanging over our relationship, you know?"

"Mmm, yes." Merlin tapped Arthur's shoulder, gesturing for him to look up above them, where a large '?' was indeed looming over their heads. "I know exactly how you feel."

"How strange."

"I think maybe we should just pretend it's not there."

Arthur rose to his feet, and started pacing. "No, Merlin. No. That's not what I want to do. I want to _deal_ with these issues. Not just pretend that they aren't real."

"But they aren't real!" screamed Elyan randomly, as he dashed past the doorway in a demented blur. "None of this is real!"

"Come back here, Elyan," Gaius' voice commanded from the distance. "We are not done with our training! Remember, your mind is like a forest and concentration must always be the tallest tree. To climb the tallest tree both your palms must be of equal size and held out in front of you so you can see them at all times. Only then will you reach the topmost branch to collect the dewdrops of knowledge that have gathered there."

"Yes, Master Gaius…" Elyan trudged back.

Arthur and Merlin looked at each other.

Merlin shook his head. "Weird."

"Everything's weird right now, Merlin," admitted Arthur. "Everything's weird and new and different. But I'm trying my best to do what's right. Will you please help me arrange the wedding? Please?"

Merlin was just about to tell Arthur that he could stick his wedding where the sun didn't shine, thank you very much, when Arthur did something very unfair.

Arthur put on his puppy dog eyes.

No one has ever been able to resist the puppy dog eyes of Arthur Pendragon.

In fact, in every city other than Camelot, they're illegal because of their extreme potency, and the fact that they induce a trance-like state in which the intended victim will agree to just about anything.

Merlin found himself nodding. "Yes Arthur. I'll help."

"Great!" Arthur clapped his hands together. "Let's get planning! Where shall we seat Geoffrey?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Geoffrey of Monmouth. Where shall we seat him?"

Merlin blinked. "Err… in the church? On a pew?"

"No _Mer_lin. I mean during the meal."

"The meal?"

"Yes. The guests are expecting a meal, Merlin."

"We have to feed them?"

"It's polite to."

"Oh."

"So… where shall we sit him? Who shall we put him next to?"

"I don't know. Why are you asking me?"

"Because he's a bit of a rascal. A scallywag, if you will. I'm afraid he has this dreadful habit of offending people. He can't sit with any of the semi colons, they've already put a price on his head, and he's a terrible sexist."

"Oh… I don't know. Put him next to Gaius. They get on, don't they? And Gaius will probably be too busy playing on his iPad to notice anything Geoffrey says."

"Excellent, Merlin!"

Merlin felt rather proud of himself. He started thinking. This was not good; for Arthur, at least. Merlin decided that, if he had to marry Arthur, he might at least enjoy it.

"Hey Arthur?"

"What?"

"What's that behind you?"

"I'm not falling for that one again, _Mer_lin."

"No, really. I think it might be a… a… sorcerer!"

"Where?" Arthur span around to confront the dastardly fellow, and Merlin stole the punctuation from the side of his mouth as his back was turned.

thats not funny merlin

Arthur clasped a hand to his face, and looked at his beau in shock.

you didnt

"But I did."

why

"You are going to have to meet some of my demands before I agree to marry you. Consider it a dowry."

but i thought we were already engaged

"That is so like you, Arthur. Making assumptions! If you ever want to see your punctuation again, I suggest you do as I say."

Arthur gave in.

fine what do you want

"An elephant," Merlin announced immediately, without stopping to consider whether or not a medieval servant of his standing would have known what an elephant was.

an elephant

"And I want Elvis Presley to sing."

but elvis presley is dead

"Elvis Presley hasn't been born yet," Merlin held up a hand to silence his protestations. "And besides that definitely falls under the category of 'your problem'."

Arthur sighed.

is there anything else you want

Merlin narrowed his eyes evilly. "Yes, actually. Do you remember that hat?"

Arthur gulped.

no

He squeaked.

"I think you do."

no I dont

"The hat you made me wear to my first feast in Camelot. The big, red frilly one with a massive feather on it."

oh that hat

"I want you to wear it."

please merlin no anything but the hat

"Don't cry, Arthur. You'll look lovely," he patted his master on the head condescendingly, and began to waddle off. "I'll write you a list of my other demands!"

Arthur groaned.

**.**

Gaius' gang were slinking surreptitiously around the castle, searching for the effects of the virus.

"I smell cookies!" observed Ringo'simaginarycat suddenly, holding out a hand to stop anybody else from going anywhere and sniffing the air suspiciously.

"Freshly baked," added M. Diane.

Gaius too began to sniff. "Freshly baked browser cookies, I think," he declared. "This way!" he threw a rope over the edge of the battlement and began scaling the wall, instructing the others to follow him.

They followed the scent of the cookies for quite some time, before, eventually, Gaius stopped, and span around. "It's a tracking cookie!"

"What makes you say that?" asked Elyan, squinting at him.

Gaius pointed behind him, at a small, dumpy chocolate chip cookie with a magnifying glass skulking along behind them, looking slightly panicked. "Asdfghjkl! This thing has been following us for about half an hour, that's what makes me say it."

Before anyone could do or say anything, or the tracking cookie could protest its innocence, guilt or otherwise, Ringo'simaginarycat had scooped it up and eaten it. "What?" Ringo's asked through a mouthful of cookie. "I've eaten worse."

"You people are all insane…" Elyan muttered to himself, shaking his head.

A large, wooden rabbit rolled up to the gates of Camelot.

M. Diane shook her head. "Looks like a Trojan. Ringo's and I can handle it, if you like?"

Gaius waved them off. "You know what to do." He turned to Elyan. "There are lots of things I need to show you."

He led Elyan out of the main gates of Camelot, where M. Diane and Ringo'simaginarycat were busy kicking the Trojan and yelling rude things about its mother at it, round the side of the walls, and to the back of the castle.

On the way there, they passed a peasant, slumped against the ground. His arm and two legs had been deleted, where data had not been recovered, and in their place were stumps of unravelling words. Gaius shook his head sadly. There was nothing more they could do for the man.

And then they reached their destination.

Elyan gasped.

Half of the castle had been eaten away, leaving nothing more than a big, chunky pixelated mess. It had crumbled into a ruinous pile of stones and words.

"What's happened?" asked Elyan, reaching down to stroke what was once an archway.

Gaius sighed. "The conjunctions that held the sentences in the stones together have been eroded by the virus, causing the castle to collapse and disintegrate into its constituent morphemes."

Elyan blinked. "In English, please?"

"The conjunctions, the sticky words, like _but_ or _and _have gone away, so now the castle can't stand, and has broken down into its most basic word parts."

"Oh. Okay."

"Well… That's a bit of an over-simplification. I believe it may have broken down into some other things as well, such as clauses and even simple sentences."

"Are you telling me that there are clauses running around Camelot?"

"Potentially. There might even be the odd pregnant pause about the place."

"What?"

"Never mind."

Gaius began to rummage through the rubble, and gestured for Elyan to do likewise.

"Ooh! Ow!" Elyan exclaimed suddenly, lifting his hand out to find '_yet_' stuck to his finger and biting it quite hard. "What was that for?" he asked the nasty little conjunction.

Yet shrugged and spoke to him snottily. "You came after me first."

Elyan turned to Gaius. "Why is this thing so arrogant?"

Gaius didn't shift to look at Elyan, he just waved his concerns away and shrugged. "Conjunctions are always arrogant; they're necessary for lexical cohesion and they know it."

Elyan scowled at the sticky little conjunction and tried to pull it off his finger, which was hard because it was so sticky. "Why are you so sticky?" he demanded of it eventually.

It scoffed. "Because I'm a conjunction. I _stick_ a text together." Yet flipped its head back arrogantly. "Honestly… is Arthur knighting any Tom, Dick or Harry these days?"

Eventually Elyan managed to bite the horrible little thing off his finger, and it swanned off, all the while recounting the days when knights were knights and knew proper grammar.

Elyan scowled after it.

"I've found it!"

"Found what?"

"What I was looking for!" declared Gaius, holding aloft a limp and lifeless passive sentence.

Elyan shook his head sadly. "Is it dead?"

"No you idiot. It's just passive. Let's get it back to my chambers, and start having a look at its make-up, shall we?"

Elyan consented. As they walked off, he heard a strange squeaking noise coming from the sole of his shoe. He lifted it, to see '_neither_' and '_nor_' glaring up at him.

"Idiot!" they berated in unison, as he peeled them off. "Didn't you see us?"

"No," he admitted.

"Well! You should look where you're going next time!" they decreed, holding hands and storming off.

Gaius chuckled in the distance. "You got pwned by a correlative conjunction!"

Elyan didn't know what that meant, so he caught up with the old man to ask him.

As they slowly made their way back towards the entrance to Camelot, Elyan noticed things about the place that he had not before. It certainly seemed as though the effects of the virus were spreading. There were turrets missing from the castle, the sky had no clouds and seemed stuck in the same disconcerting shade of sickeningly bright blue and there were no actual blades of grass, the fields were just uniform blocks of colour.

He pointed this out to Gaius, who simply laughed.

"That is not the virus, my boy. I'm afraid it's the fault of the author's lack of description. It looks like Camelot, only being viewed by someone who has forgotten to put their spectacles on."

Elyan considered this as the plot-character continuum took another blow, and a pregnant pause ran past them, feeling hormonal.

**. **

"Your move."

Paralelsky scratched her shin, which was odd, and didn't really help her thinking process. They both knew she'd intended to scratch her chin, and the author's fingers had simply slipped on the keypad, but they didn't mention it. The plot-character continuum was already looking worryingly swollen (from what they could see of it out of the corners of their eyes) and Kilgarrah did _not_ want to have to put up any more curtains.

Or rather, he did not want to have to get Arrow'Nash to put up any more curtains.

It wasn't as if he'd done any of the work himself.

Arrow'Nash continued happily sewing in the corner, contemplating the mysteries of the universe, as Paralelsky tried to move her hand from her shin to her chin in a nonchalant manner, so that she could scratch her chin thoughtfully without undermining the author.

It didn't work.

The plot-character continuum rumbled and cracked.

"You just weren't subtle enough," Kilgarrah chastised.

Paralelsky groaned. "Whatever."

All of a sudden, Merlin appeared at the entrance to Kilgarrah's cave.

Out of a mixture of habit and panic, Arrow'Nash rammed the calculations she'd been absentmindedly scribbling down her throat.

"Merlin!" exclaimed Kilgarrah, jumping up on his hind legs and scattering the chess board, all of his previous resolutions to play it cool when the young warlock finally decided to show his face again flying out of the window. "What are you doing here?" Kilgarrah coughed, lowered his voice a few octaves, and tried to recapture some dignity by staring at the ceiling in an aloof manner. "I mean: _What are you doing here?_"

Merlin frowned. "Have you got something stuck in your throat?"

Paralelsky and Arrow'Nash were now giggling quite loudly.

"No."

"Is there something really interesting on the ceiling?" Merlin asked, baffled, looking up to see what it was The Great Dragon was staring at so intently.

Kilgarrah sighed and stared at Merlin again. "No. There is nothing on the ceiling. Why are you here? Has disaster struck Camelot again?"

"Errm… Now that you mention it, yes, actually. Disaster _has _struck. Multiple times. But that's not why I'm here…"

Kilgarrah put a hand over his heart and looked wounded. "Are you telling me that disaster struck Camelot and you _didn't_ come to ask my advice?"

Merlin blinked. "No. I didn't. I didn't want to know that I had the answer all along, or that some things can only become clear with time, or that the destiny is inescapable, funnily enough. I wanted some actual help."

Kilgarrah looked as though Merlin had punched him in the face. "I will have you know, young warlock, that I have been handing out cryptic advice since before your mother was born!"

"Don't you dare bring my mother into this!" snapped Merlin.

Kilgarrah grinned and stuck out his lizard tongue. "Your mum!"

"Shut up!"

"Your mum!"

"Shut _up_!"

"Your mum!"

"Shut -"

"Will both of you please be quiet?" asked Arrow'Nash, very calmly and politely as she rethreaded her needle. "You're giving me a headache."

They looked down at their feet (or in Kilgarrah's case, at their talons) sheepishly.

"I'm sorry," they mumbled in unison.

"I actually came here to ask your advice about something much more fun," Merlin told them, pulling some parchment from his back pocket and grinning wickedly. "I'm making a list of demands for my wedding."

"You're getting married?" asked Paralelsky, confused. "To whom?"

"Arthur, of course," answered Merlin, as if was the most natural thing in the world.

Paralelsky frowned. "Are you alright? What about Freya?"

Merlin waved a hand dismissively. "Freya-shmeya."

"That's not normal…" Paralelsky pondered, but Arrow'Nash cut her off.

"Don't question it! It's wonderful!"

Merlin beamed. "Thank you. I'm glad someone else feels that way about things. Now… Do any of you nice people…"

Kilgarragh coughed.

"I'm sorry, nice people _and dragons_…"

Kilgarrah interrupted again, with a wistful sigh. "Only one dragon," he murmured. "Always only one."

Arrow'Nash coughed. "Well… That's awkward."

Merlin tried again. "Does anyone have any ideas for things I can blackmail Arthur into doing for our wedding?"

"Um…" thought Paralelsky, scratching her shin again.

"How about Uther's head on a pike?" suggested Kilgarrah.

Merlin considered this. "I don't know… It might be a bit medieval."

"What about the guys from Supernatural?" offered Paralelsky, a dreamy look on her face.

"I think we've got the supernatural end of things covered," Merlin replied, holding out his hand and casting a spell to demonstrate. "Oooglius Booglius."

He offered her a small pebble that he had generated and shrugged. "It was meant to be a snail."

"Why would you conjure me a snail?"

"I felt like it."

Arrow'Nash narrowed her eyes at Merlin suspiciously. "That spell was gibberish, wasn't it?"

"Probably. I hear the author's fairly lazy."

The plot-character continuum ruptured slowly behind them.

"Ooh! Ooh! I have one!" exclaimed Arrow'Nash, throwing her hand up in the air. "You should ask for a disco ball! But a really big one that you could get inside and roll around in and so it would be like being inside a mirror only a round one…"

"I have a thought," Kilgarrah went next. "Why don't you demand my freedom?"

Merlin sighed. "If I set you free, do you promise you won't kill anyone this time?"

A pregnant pause that had got lost and followed the path under the castle to the dragon's cave popped up at just the right moment and stood in the middle of them.

Kilgarrah coughed. "Err… Yes."

He sounded somewhat insincere, but Merlin decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and added it to the list.

**.**

Gaius and Elyan carried the passive sentence into the physician's chambers, where Ringo'simaginarycat and M. Diane were already waiting.

"Help us put this on the table," Gaius implored.

They stretched it out on the table in front of them, laying the bowl of potatoes and tomatoes to the side for a minute (after Gaius picked a few to nibble on).

And they stopped to observe it.

_The stones are cracked with a wave of her hand._

"So…" Elyan asked, not sure what everyone was staring at. "Are all the walls made up of sentences about the walls?"

"Yes."

"Are all the tables made up of sentences about the tables?"

"Yes."

He looked down at himself. "Am I made up of sentences about me?"

Gaius grinned. "Now you're getting the hang of it. Everybody: sunglasses on."

The assembled party reached into their pockets and put on big black shades. They might have been at risk of looking ridiculous if their faces weren't so serious.

Gaius reached for a knife to begin cutting into the sentence. "This should tell us something about the state of the castle. If this is perfectly intact, then it ought to be an ordinary passive sentence: a primary auxiliary verb and participle formed by adding an en/ed bound morpheme to a stem."

Everybody waited with baited breath to see what would happen as Gaius' knife inched closer to the sentence.

"Boo!"

"ARRGH!"

Nicicia and Elizakiwi high-fived one another. "That was _so_ worth sitting in a barrel for two hours!" declared Elizakiwi, as she shook grain from her hair and grinned.

Nicicia couldn't talk for laughing at the shocked expressions on everybody else's faces.

Gaius dropped his knife and glowered at the two girls. "What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Elizakiwi and Nicicia looked at each other nervously and then, in perfect synchronisation, asked, "Did someone say Draco Malfoy?"

There was a second when they thought Gaius might not have forgiven them.

But then Gaius winked and inquired, "Did your turban just sneeze?" and they could tell he was going to let them in his gang.

**.**

"I'm bored," announced Jissai, as Whirlwind421 threw a rock against the walls of the dungeons again and again.

"Me too," agreed Cherrytree007.

"Me three," said IceCreamDoodle13.

They all gasped and turned to stare at her. She frowned and asked, "What?"

Kitty O shook her head. "You said something."

"So? We're all saying things."

"No. You _said_ something. Why would you do that? It's such a boring word."

IceCreamDoodle13 shrugged. "Yeah… Well. I'm bored."

YOUTHFULwolfie growled. "We're all bored. Why don't we escape? Everyone escapes from the dungeons. Why are we just sitting here?"

"Good point," Lupa Dracolis said.

Kitty O threw her hands up. "Now you're doing it too!"

"Yeah? Well… It's boring in here, there's not much else to do. Besides, sometimes said can be used for effect."

They all nodded in agreement with this.

Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe had been watching the guards on duty. "The guards don't seem too bright," she observed.

"At least someone's not _saying_," grumbled Kitty O.

"Be quiet," said Jissai.

"I think we could take them," Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe concluded.

magnusrae snored and shifted position in the corner.

"Is she _sleeping_?" asked Cherrytree007 incredulously.

Whirlwind421 shrugged. "Mmm. She does that a lot."

Cherrytree shook her head.

Suddenly, there was a great kerfuffle, and the locking and unlocking of doors in the distance. The authors sat up, and they could hear yelling.

"Don't make me use my spork of DOOM! I'll do it!"

"She's not kidding… That thing can really poke."

"Yeah! Poke!"

"And I'll bite you if you get too close!"

There was what sounded like heavy eye-rolling in the distance. "I'm not with them."

"Yes you are."

"Are you two trying to get us in more trouble?"

"Yeah. Why not? How could we get in any more trouble?"

"In for a penny, in for a pound!"

The source of the yelling finally arrived at the authors' cell, and Storylover456, XxMileena-chanxX and V were thrown in with the rest of them.

magnusrae was woken up by someone landing on her. "I'm guessing you aren't the rescue party?"

"I don't understand," said Lupa Dracolis with a sigh, leaning back against the wall. "What could have happened to the guards to make them so competent?"

Unbeknownst to the authors, the reason why the guards of Camelot's dungeons were now doing their jobs and actually guarding the dungeons (instead of playing cards, eating, getting poisoned and blaming every slip up on '_an evil sorcerer who appeared from out of nowhere and overpowered us, he did_') was that they had been harshly berated by a passing angry American with a walking stick, who had made them all feel very bad about themselves.

Ian hadn't stopped crying and Nigel had developed a serious inferiority complex.

But, eventually, they had decided to take this stranger's grumpy words to heart, and they started _guarding_. It had been peculiar and somewhat counter-intuitive at first. Several of the regulars to the dungeons wanted to know what the deal was. But they stood by their decision, and they were all starting to feel better about themselves now; it had been hours since any of them had been sentenced to death for incompetence, which made a nice change.

The bored authors started counting sheep.

**.**

Arthur was pacing when it happened.

"Oh man!" exclaimed Vegetables, pointing at him and looking rather cross. "I don't believe this! Is it true that you've arrested all of my friends?"

err

"How could you be so _stupid_, Arthur? Do you know what the PA is planning?"

no they havent been up to anything have they

"Exactly! Everything has been almost _suspiciously _quiet on the punctuation front, wouldn't you say? Wait… Speaking of punctuation, where's yours gone?"

merlin took it he wants an elephant

"Right."

and this hat

He produced the monstrosity from behind his back and balanced it on top of his head. Vegetables wanted to try not to laugh, but it was impossible; if the hat had looked stupid on Merlin, it looked absolutely moronic on Arthur.

i knew it looked awful

"I wouldn't say awful…"

clownish prattish stupid unprincely

"You do look like a bit of a dollop head."

what does that even mean

She shrugged. "It's idiomatic. Now… Are you going to be nice and release my friends from the dungeon?"

i guess so we need all the help we can get but theyre not magic are they

"No, Arthur. There's no such thing as magic."

well thats plainly untrue

Vegetables was just about to respond with some cold, hard, undeniable scientific fact when Gwaine bounded out of nowhere with a piece of paper clutched in his hand.

"I'm done!" he announced, as if anybody understood what that meant.

done with what

Gwaine cleared his throat.

"_There once was a man called Gwaine_

_Who had been driven insane_

_By love for a girl_

_Cute as a squirrel_

_For whom he would from ale abstain._"

Arthur coughed.

what was that supposed to be

"That was an expression of my deepest and innermost feelings!"

that was a limerick no one expresses their deepest and innermost feelings through a limerick

"Shut up, Arthur," said Vegetables. "It's getting really hard to work out what's the narrative and what's your speech and I'm fed up of trying. Gwaine, I don't know what to say."

"Vegetables, I…"

"Don't touch me!" she screeched suddenly, jumping away from him, and grabbing the nearest object - that just happened to be Lancelot's banjo - which she held threateningly above her head.

Lancelot seemed mildly surprised. One minute he'd been dancing along and banjoing it up, the next he'd been assaulted. And now his banjo was gone and he was miserable again. Actually, if possible, he was even more miserable than before. He skulked off to go and consider how sad he was without his banjo.

Just as it looked like Vegetables might beat Gwaine to death with a banjo, Merlin appeared.

"I've finalised my demands, Arthur!" he declared, waving a list about for everyone to see.

oh great more people with pieces of paper

Vegetables shot Arthur a warning look. "What have I told you about speaking? It's confusing."

Arthur looked guiltily down at his shoes as Merlin began to recite things from his list.

"I want a pumpkin carriage like the one from Cinderella drawn by flying horses and unicorns - that was Arrow'Nash's suggestion, by the way, but isn't it a great idea? Kilgarrah says he knows a place where they sell unicorns real cheap too. Anyway, I also want a train of hobbits to hold my veil and a giant rubber duck that would, of course, have to float in the moat, which I want you to fill with bubble bath. I'd also appreciate a pair of platform shoes to give me some extra height but also that snazzy vintage feel and I was thinking maybe we should go with a Roman theme? Have everyone wearing togas? We could crown you Caesar, if you insist. Gaius suggested strobe lights which I thought was an excellent idea and of course we're going to need marching band…"

Arthur cut him off with a wave of the hand.

this is ridiculous is this a wedding or a circus

"A little bit of both, I imagine."

Before Arthur could tell Merlin that none of the above was going to occur, and Merlin could get stroppy and refuse to give Arthur back his punctuation etc. etc. etc., the singing started up again.

"Ooooooh."

"I'm fed up of that song!" Merlin growled.

Arthur was singing along.

"We're all someone's daughter. We're all someone's son."

"I've been pretending I can't hear it," admitted Gwaine.

"How long can we look at each other down the barrel of a gun?"

Vegetables frowned. "Where is it coming from?"

"If only I knew…" began Merlin.

"You'd what?" joked Gwaine. "Terrify the singer with your fearsome unicorns?"

"Like you can talk, limerick man," snorted Vegetables, who was still poking him warily with her banjo, just in case he got any funny ideas.

Merlin held out his hand in a very dramatic manner and his eyes glowed gold. "Sssssshhhhtoooppee!" he commanded.

Gwaine and Vegetables gawped, and turned to Arthur, but he was too busy dancing and singing to notice anything untoward.

Nothing happened as a result of Merlin's 'spell' anyway.

"I told you magic wasn't real," said Vegetables to Arthur, even though he wasn't listening.

At that moment, there was a splitting clamour and yet another plot hole emerged before their very eyes.

eFox hadn't noticed that everyone was staring. eFox was way too busy singing.

"You're the voice, try and understand it! Make a noise and make it clear! Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o! We're not gonna sit in silence! We're not gonna live with fear! Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!"

There was a pause. The whole of Camelot was slightly concerned about lots of important and worrying things. Morgana and Morgause were (very slowly) making their way towards Camelot with a large army; the rumour mill was churning wildly with gossip about the PA's latest plans; and people were beginning to wonder if the much-anticipated - and rather controversial - Royal Wedding was _ever_ going to happen. Everyone stopped caring about all of these things for now, and decided to join in with Arthur and eFox, and dance badly and sing, "Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!" until the song ended.


	16. Chapter 15

**A/N: Basically this entire chapter goes out to Storylover456 who wanted Glee-singing knights. You got an entire musical chapter. Do I get a narwhal? Arrow'Nash wanted to aquire a rabbit, lots of people have continously pointed out the historical inaccuracy of everyone being cool with Merlin and Arthur's relationship, jaqtkd wanted to be a traitor, Jissai wanted to torture people, magnusrae mentioned the similarity between the redshirts and the knights. I think that's everyone. The Safety Dance belongs to Men Without Hats, Journey own Don't Stop Believing, Walking in the Air was written by Howard Blake but I wrote the one at the end. Word. Lady Elrayen suggested I do something similar to what I do at the end (not going to spoil it) and I did already have the idea, but thanks nonetheless! Thanks everyone for the ideas, the reviews and just being the best readers ever. You're all amazing and I hope how awesome I think you all are translates into the amount of effort I put into writing this stupid thing! Sorry it's so flipping long. Enjoy :D**

A tanned Uther Pendragon stood outside the gates of Camelot wearing a loose-fitting, gaudy-coloured Hawaiian shirt that was blowing about in the chilly English breezes, some exceptionally ugly swimming trunks, socks with sandals and a pair of mock Ray-Bans perched on top of his head.

He thought he looked dead cool.

He readjusted the surf board tucked under his arm and continued to sing to himself as he strolled lazily into the courtyard, much to the surprise of the guards on duty, who were at least expecting to have their mothers' maidenhood called into question because of their 'incompetence' and at most expecting to have to say goodbye to some of their most treasured appendages.

But the king took no notice of them whatsoever.

Apparently, he was in a good mood today.

He actually seemed, although no one dared say it aloud for fear of breaking the spell (not that it could possibly have been a spell, those are banned, and banned very effectively, you understand) _relaxed_.

How peculiar.

Uther began to sing a little tune to himself.

"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts," trilled the King of Camelot as he plodded along and smiled happily at clouds and babies.

Now, this particular occurrence might not have been worth mentioning had it not been simultaneously accompanied by two other seemingly unrelated occurrences.

Firstly, in a corridor in some other, higher-up, part of the castle, Arthur, Merlin, Gwaine and eFox were singing out the last few lines of _You're the Voice_. Even Vegetables had surrendered to the inevitable and begun strumming on Lancelot's banjo, which she had right in hand. Lancelot, who had stormed away - but not far enough away to not be able to hear them - heard his banjo being strummed, but not by him, and sobbed heartily.

Secondly, Gaius' gang (minus Gaius, who had sent them away to go and run errands) were galumphing up the stairs towards said corridor in some other, higher-up, part of the castle, and singing songs from _A Very Potter Musical_.

And so comes the explanation as to why, when so many other strange things were happening in Camelot at the time, these were the things I bothered mentioning first: lines from the three songs drifted together in the air, and as they met the sound waves looked at each other suspiciously, slowly sneaked closer together, made wary greetings, and eventually coiled around one another to make one big, weird song.

"Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!"

"Welcome, all of you to Hogwarts. I welcome back you all to school Did you know that here at Hogwarts we've got a hidden swimming pool?"

"Here they are, standing in a line."

"Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!"

"You like plotting a garden and I like plotting to kill! You think that you should rule the world; I think books are a thrill! Sipping tea by the fire's swell! Pushing people in is fun as well. I like folding all my ties. And you have no friends, hey, that's a surprise!"

"Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head."

"Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!"

Unbeknownst to the singers, what they were doing was effectively (though quite accidentally) singing a mash-up of songs, which built to such a loud crescendo that it catapulted them into the Crossover category of 'Musical'.

As the three groups of warbling people all reached the aforementioned high-up part of the castle, before they could stop to greet each other, or before anyone could ask Uther where he'd been, why he was wearing shorts or simply respond to his presence by screaming and running off in the other direction, Percy and Leon appeared.

Percy and Leon were holding hands.

Percy and Leon were holding hands and singing.

"Just a small town girl," warbled Percy, looking dreamily into Leon's eyes as he did so.

Vegetables lowered her banjo and looked on in horror. "No," she whispered to herself. "Please no. Anything but that."

"Livin' in a lonely world," Percy continued, letting go of his 'special friend's' hand, and beginning to twirl around the others in a very girlish fashion.

"She took the midnight train goin' anywhere," sang Leon, clicking his fingers.

Vegetables tried to run away, but, before she knew what was happening, Gwaine had grabbed her hand.

"Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit!" he garbled loudly and horribly off-key.

Vegetables wasn't going to sing it. She wasn't. She refused. But apparently her mouth and her vocal chords had other ideas. "He took the midnight train goin' anywhere!"

_Oh no. Now she was skipping as well._

And the others weren't holding out much better.

"A singer in a smokey room! A smell of wine and cheap perfume!" Ringo'simaginarycat crooned whilst pirouetting.

Now it was Elizakiwi's turn, although she actually appeared to be enjoying the opportunity to prance around. She harped something about loving Darren Criss (whoever he was) before she had to sing her line: "For a smile they can share the night!"

Just then miskris95 plopped down out of a plot hole and into the story, brushing herself off and, to her credit, not looking anything like as surprised at seeing half the cast of _Merlin_ dancing around to a Journey song, looking more like the cast of _Glee_, as they looked to see her.

"Why are you surprised?" she asked them. "You're all singing and dancing. Of course there would be a plot hole!"

They shrugged and accepted this, as she joined the dance.

"It goes on and on and on and on!" howled Elizakiwi, who hadn't much liked being interrupted.

And finally they were all at it. Although none of them would ever admit to it afterwards, there was definitely some co-ordinated disco dancing going on.

"Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard! Their shadows searching in the night! Streetlight people, living just to find emotion! Hiding, somewhere in the night!"

"What is this song even about?" hissed M. Diane to Arthur as he spun her around.

im not sure

He responded honestly with a shrug.

we had the same problem with the last one

"Working hard to get my fill!" screeched Nicicia, causing Gwaine to cover his ears. She scowled at him and stuck her tongue out. "You were worse," she mumbled.

"Was not," he lied.

"Were!" she insisted.

"Everybody wants a thrill!" declared Elyan, whilst doing the splits.

"Payin' anything to roll the dice just one more time," chorused Leon and Percy.

"Some will win, some will lose! Some were born to sing the blues!" offered eFox, whilst spinning around and nearly hitting M. Diane and Elizakiwi in their respective faces.

oh the movie never ends

Declared Arthur, taking Merlin in his arms.

it goes on and on and on and on

At this point, Merlin removed himself from Arthur's arms and decided to be a show-off.

"Don't stop believin'! Hold on to the feelin'! Streetlight people! Don't stop believin'! Hold on to the feelin'! Streetlight people! Don't stop believin'! Hold on to the feelin'! Streetlight people! DON'T STOP!"

Arthur scowled as the song came to a close and everyone but Merlin had stopped singing and dancing.

that was uncalled for

Merlin opened his eyes and noticed everyone staring at him. He shrugged and offered no explanation other than, "It makes me feel alive."

Lancelot, who had skulked back from where he'd skulked off to in order to view the shambolic performance, tutted at them. Especially Vegetables. "I can't believe you used my banjo for _that_."

She scowled. "It wasn't as if I had a choice… It was like being consumed by some sort of all-singing, all-dancing poltergeist. It was horrible."

eFox nodded in agreement and pulled Merlin into a tight hug. "I had no control over my arms or legs!"

M. Diane peeled eFox off Merlin. "You have control over them now!"

"Err… Right… I was just…"

Elizakiwi turned to look at Merlin very thoughtfully. "Is that what it feels like to be trapped inside a fanfic? Being forced to say and do things you don't want to?"

Merlin scratched the back of his neck even though it wasn't itchy and turned to scowl up at where he thought the author probably was. "Yeah. That's what it's like. You feel violated."

Ringo'simaginarycat looked ashamed. "I'm sorry, Merlin. I think we're all sorry…"

They all looked down at their shoes and mumbled apologetically. A sorrier sight has ne'er been seen in all fanfictiondom.

"I guess we don't really think about the effect it has on you," muttered miskris95, who wasn't able to look into Merlin's big, sad eyes because of all the **GUILT**.

"I think I speak for all of us when I say that I solemnly swear that I shall never again write fanfiction, because forcing characters to do things against their will just isn't right," Nicicia declared, with her hand on her heart.

The others all nodded in agreement.

"Really?" asked Merlin, looking hopeful. "Do you really mean that?"

"No," answered Nicicia with a wink that led Gwaine to accuse her of copyright infringement.

"Merlin," Vegetables tried to explain. "Fanfiction is just how we express our mildly obsessive love for you. Don't take that away from us, please."

Merlin looked as if he was about to say something when Uther interrupted him.

"Enough of this!" declared the king, holding up a hand. "I do not understand most of the words you are using and have come to the conclusion that, therefore, you are attempting to plot against me. You will all be dealt with later. I have another, far more important, matter to discuss."

Everyone fell silent.

"Son! It has come to my attention that you wish to be joined in marriage to this boy. Do you deny it?"

Arthur frowned.

but it was me who told you that father

"Silence!"

but dont you remember i said chicken or beef and you said what about the vegetarians and then i went after your question mark

"Be quiet, boy!"

is this because merlins a commoner because on the show theyre going to have me marry gwen you know so i dont see how this is any worse really and i love merlin very very very much you should know that if it helps you make your decision

"I'll tell you how this is worse, you imbecile! Merlin is a boy!"

Arthur blinked.

Merlin frowned. "I thought that was obvious, Sire?"

why is that a problem father

"Because this is the Middle Ages! Men marry women! In fact, at the time this fanfiction is being written gay marriage has yet to be recognised on the same terms as heterosexual marriage! It's highly controversial!"

oh

Arthur turned to look at Merlin who shrugged, as if to suggest it was news to him to, even though it wasn't.

is it

"Yes! I will not allow this!"

why not

"Because the author has decided that your relationship being forbidden will only strengthen your love!" Uther paused. "Wait what? I mean, because I have been on a soul-searching retreat and I have remembered that I'm mean and angry and want you to marry a woman of my choosing." Uther nodded as if he was trying to reassure himself of this more than anyone else.

oh yeah where have you been anyway

"What? What do you mean _'where have I been'_? You're the one who sent me farther and farther away! You sent me as far away as possible! You sent me to Australia!"

Arthur looked blank.

"So… I thought I might as well have a holiday while I was there. I deserved a chance to relax. You people have no idea how much I do for you! Just keeping this city from being devoured by monsters takes so much energy! It's been ages since I took a little time for myself, enjoyed the beach, the pool, the cocktails, the women…"

err dad you can stop there i think weve all heard enough

"Yes, well… You have not heard the last of this! I am not going to allow this wedding to take place!" Uther declared as he stomped off down the hallway. "And I'm also not going to forget that you were all plotting against me! Expect to die soon!"

Vegetables scurried off after him as the others looked on in shock.

"Err, Uther… About the dying soon? We weren't actually plotting against you, um… we were planning a surprise birthday party…"

"Oh! What a lovely idea!"

"Yeah… Exactly… Ahem. Do you think you could not have us all killed now?"

**.**

The authors were sitting in the dungeon, half-heartedly cooking up an escape plan.

Kitty O had headed up the team, and was attempting to organise them into factions as she wrote the basic outline of their complex plan on the ground with the spare pen she had been carrying in her pocket.

"Right…" she began, furrowing her non-brow (remember, they lack facial features).

"Yes, write!" instructed IceCreamDoodle13, poking Kitty O in the side with a stick she had found on the floor.

Kitty O did not take kindly to this.

"I said right, not write. Don't poke me."

"Oh. Right."

"Exactly."

No one else was following this conversation, it contained too many homophones.

"Now…" Kitty O tried to regain control. "We must plan our escape. Jasper, thoughts?"

Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe nodded, accepting command. "I have been watching the guards, and I think the best time to try to escape would be when they're switching shifts, from Ian and Nigel to Chuck and Barry. They're the dopiest."

Everyone else seemed to agree with this.

"Whatever we do, steer clear of Norman, he's sharp," warned Storylover456.

"I don't like Norman," muttered Whirlwind421, in a quiet, pained voice. Cherrytree007 patted her on the back consolingly and V offered her a tissue.

Kitty O wrote _**NORMAN**_ in big letters and then crossed it out vigorously, to stress the point.

"And whatever we do, no one must mention the 'p word'," insisted Storylover456.

"What p***?" asked Jissai, surprised to find himself choking on asterisks. "What the f*** was that?" he asked, coughing to dislodge the stars from his throat.

"No… plot hole," explained V, then gasping as the walls of the dungeons shook.

"And you can't swear. So stop trying," Cherrytree007 told him, anticipating his next turn of mind. "It's a K+ fic."

"Can we please get back to planning?" asked Kitty O, looking thoroughly ready to smack someone.

Jasper leaned back to check the guards on duty weren't listening in on them. They weren't. They were in the middle of a motivational group huddle, discussing how to improve dungeon efficiency.

"We need a distraction," Jasper concluded. "Who's the most distracting person here?"

They all looked at each other, except for magnusrae, whose apparently insatiable appetite for napping had meant she'd been excused from the plan-hatching session, and XxMileena-chanxX, who had decided the others weren't heroic enough and had taken it upon herself to attempt to tunnel out of the dungeons using her spork of DOOM.

"I think YOUTHFULwolfie could be very distracting, if she put her mind to it," suggested Lupa Dracolis eventually.

"Thank you!" gushed YOUTHFULwolfie, with a hand on her heart. "That's very nice of you to say! I can teach you how it's done, if you like?"

"I would like that, yes."

"Well… The first thing you need is a can of sprayee mace…"

"Enough," declared Cherrytree007, putting up a hand. "I think it's decided. YOUTHFULwolfie is the most distracting."

YOUTHFULwolfie looked very pleased with herself.

Kitty O began scribbling all of this down most ferociously.

IceCreamDoodle13 looked at the plan Kitty O had written critically.

"What?" demanded Kitty O.

"Well… It's just not very dramatic, is it?"

"Not very dramatic," Kitty O repeated slowly.

"Yeah," agreed Whirlwind421. "It needs to build to a more of a climax…"

"Have a few cliff-hangers," added Cherrytree007.

"Like getting stranded on a desert island and being forced to eat each other?" suggested V.

"Or making it look as if the bad guys have won for a second," ventured Storylover456. "It's like how on the show Merlin always has to say his spells more than once. It has to _look_ as if we're not going to succeed and then _bam_ we pull it out of nowhere!"

"What bad guys?" asked Cherrytree007.

"Mm," continued YOUTHFULwolfie as if there had been no question. "Or one of those moments where you think the main character's dead but actually they're not."

"Yes," agreed Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe. "It might be cliché but it works. And would it kill you to throw in a bit of rhetoric?"

"And some iambic pentameter!" squealed Lupa Dracolis excitedly.

Kitty O buried her head in her hands and groaned. "I _hate_ authors."

During all of this, Jissai, who had been sitting quietly, not looking particularly dangerous - appearances can be deceptive - and humming, had been eyeing magnusrae.

As Merlin can testify, Jissai + boredom +dungeons +unsuspecting victims = not a good thing.

He edged closer to the dozing magnusrae.

She mumbled something about Naruto in her sleep.

Jissai reached inside his pocket for something that looked suspiciously like a nutcracker and brought it up towards her ear, grinning devilishly.

"Come any closer and I will be forced to dismember you," magnusrae snarled, still apparently looking as though she was sleeping peacefully.

Jissai scowled and backed away, scanning the dungeons for a different unsuspecting victim.

He zoned in on V, producing a pair of tweezers.

"Prepare to meet your doom!" he whispered.

"Go away," instructed V, batting at him as if he was some mildly irritating fly, as opposed to an experienced torturer.

Jissai was beginning to get fed up of this.

"I will kill you!" he screamed, launching himself suddenly at YOUTHFULwolfie.

YOUTHFULwolfie did not take kindly to being assaulted and threatened. She wailed and jumped up in the air, and they both ended up doing some strange kind of attack-dance around the dungeon whilst producing bizarre weaponry from who knows where about their persons and attempting to use them on one another.

This drew the guards' attention.

Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe grinned. "I think we have our distraction."

Amid all of the chaos, no one noticed that XxMileena-chanxX had actually successfully managed to tunnel out of the dungeons and had crawled away to go and be heroic, leaving them to it.

**.**

In the Great Dragon's cave (or lair, as it was known to uninvited callers) Paralelsky and Kilgarrah had reached an impasse with their current game of chess, and had resorted to both trying to stare each other down as Arrow'Nash repeatedly stabbed her fingers in an attempt to put up some frilly curtains in the corner.

"Ouch!" she exclaimed, getting thoroughly fed up, and tossing the curtains down to the floor in a heap. "I'm fed up of this."

Kilgarrah raised an eyebrow, not taking his eyes off Paralelsky, being slightly afraid that she might sneakily cheat and move the chessboard around if he dared to look away. "I thought the temper tantrums were young Guinevere's forte."

"Oh!" Arrow'Nash huffed. "Don't get me started on Gwen."

"You had to mention Gwen…" grumbled Paralelsky.

Kilgarrah snarled at her and hissed, releasing a slight puff of smoke from his lips: just enough to singe Paralelsky's eyebrows and stop her from making any more sarcastic comments.

"I tried to tell her about her character defects and all she did was cry and look cute and fluffy and make me want to cuddle her! It's not fair!" Arrow'Nash pouted. Then she sighed. Then she looked over at the Great Dragon and the (now mostly eyebrow-less) Paralelsky. "Do you think I should go and apologise to her?" she asked them.

Paralelsky yawned. "Probably."

Arrow'Nash nodded to herself because she'd already decided she was going to do that anyway and sauntered off.

Kilgarrah growled down at the chessboard.

"It's your move," Paralelsky reminded him, grinning a little because she knew he couldn't do anything.

Kilgarrah narrowed his little dragon-y eyes as if he was thinking very, very hard about his next, complex move, and all of its ramifications right across the chessboard. Then he leaned over and ate Paralelsky's Queen. "Check mate," he told her and burped.

"Fair enough."

Not far away from the cave XxMileena-chanxX had just finished tunnelling and had decided that, since Merlin wasn't doing anything Merlin-like and saving the day, she probably ought to. So she went to go and find the Great Dragon.

"Hello!" she announced herself, with her hands on her hips, her spork of DOOM sheathed at her side but ready to be whipped out at the first sign of trouble, looking stern, serious and not-to-be-messed-with. "I urgently need to save Camelot and I need your help, oh dragon! Don't ask me how I knew to come to you, because I cannot explain!"

"You saw it on the TV, didn't you?" asked Paralelsky.

"Err… Yeah. How did you know?"

"I saw it on the TV too."

"Oh. Well… That doesn't change the facts. Kilgarrah, can I call you that?"

"No. You must call me Oh Great And Mighty One," Kilgarrah told her seriously, with a menacing look in his eye.

"Really?"

"No," Kilgarrah chuckled, flapping a paw at her. "So! What can I do you for?"

"I need to know what needs to be done to save Camelot!" XxMileena-chanxX declared dramatically. "I am prepared to make any sacrifice that needs to be made!"

"Really? Will you be prepared for anything that you might face?"

"I will!" she replied eagerly.

"Well then, you must travel to the Lake of Avalon and retrieve the sword Excalibur…"

"I thought Merlin stuck that sword in the stone?" interjected Paralelsky, wondering briefly if she'd dreamt that whole episode.

"Oh, yes," Kilgarrah felt a little silly. "Of course. Pardon me; the old noggin isn't what it used to be," he tapped the side of his head for effect, and it made a hollow knocking sound, like wood. "I'm afraid that's what a few thousand years will do to you!"

"Really? A few thousand years?" Paralelsky inquired. "You don't look it."

"Oh! Shush you. I take care of myself…" Kilgarrah noticed XxMileena-chanxX looking at them very strangely. "Now, back to the matter at hand. You must travel to the forest of Coedwig and there you will find the sword implanted in a stone at the very heart of the circle of the tallest trees."

"Right…" XxMileena-chanxX had basically never been given worse directions to anything in her entire life. "And how do I get to this forest?"

"Um… Let me think… Sorry, maps aren't my thing; dragons don't have great sense of direction or spatial awareness… I think it's straight ahead out of the main gates of Camelot, then a right at the first smelly village, then a left at the second group of angry-looking bandits, then a right then a left then a right then a left, and if you reach a big, sparkly lake and some mountains, you've gone too far. You want to head in the direction of Cenred's castle - that's the one that ought to be straight in front of you, and is big and black and on top of a hill. He's not much of a people person. If you reach Olaf's castle, that's the pink one - I think he let Vivian in charge of the decorating - then you need to turn right back around on yourself."

XxMileena-chanxX stared blankly at the Great Dragon. "Err… thanks. I guess I'll be going then. Should I take a gang with me? Is that how you do it?"

Paralelsky shrugged. "It depends if you're feeling like getting all the glory or not, I suppose. But taking a group with you is a good idea; the ratio of bandits to other, normal people is alarmingly high here."

XxMileena-chanxX took these wise words of advice on board, and went off to go and accomplish her mission.

Paralelsky turned up towards Kilgarrah in disbelief. "I don't believe you. We needed Excalibur all along and you left it up till _now_ to say something? I know you like your dramatic timing and all, but this is bordering on being ridiculous. You can't hold back a vital piece of information just because the writers tell you to! That doesn't help anybody!"

Kilgarrah snorted. "We do not need Excalibur."

"What?"

"Are you hard of hearing, my dear? We do not need Excalibur."

"But… But then why did you just send that girl off on a dangerous, probably life-threatening mission to go and get it?"

Kilgarrah shrugged. "We do not need it, but it will not do any harm. Besides, if she feels like she's helping, then that's all well and good. We never need Excalibur."

Paralelsky narrowed her eyes and all of a sudden Kilgarrah gulped, getting the feeling that he had revealed too much.

"What do you mean, _we never need Excalibur_?"

Kilgarrah coughed awkwardly. "Well… I believe you shall agree with me that this is actually a rather funny story…"

Paralelsky looked like she highly doubted that; her hands were on her hips and everything. "Out with it."

"There's nothing particularly special about Excalibur."

"What?"

"Think of it as more of a lucky charm."

"But… but… What do you mean?"

"Haven't you ever seen one of those cheesy sitcoms," Kilgarrah shuddered as if the words were physically painful. "In which one person gives to another some item that they say is special or 'lucky', but its only real value is the confidence it gives the bearer?"

"Yes…" Paralelsky answered warily.

"Well," Kilgarrah shrugged. "That's exactly what Excalibur is. A magical confidence boost, with… ahem… no real magic."

"But it was forged in the dragon's breath!"

Kilgarrah laughed. "That's one of my favourite rumours of all. The only potent thing about dragon's breath is its smell. And its ability to burn things. Nothing magical."

Paralelsky let out a puff of air. "I don't believe you. This is the worst lie you've ever told. This is worse than you being all cryptic with Merlin about whether or not Morgana was evil, and effectively making her seem like forbidden fruit to him. You are aware that the entire Mergana genre is your fault?"

Kilgarrah shrugged. "What's done is done. The young warlock would not have believed me if I had told him that the un-dead are very easy to kill, because they have died before and are used to doing it. I do not suppose he would have understood it. So I might have invented the legend of Excalibur, but Merlin certainly feels better for it."

"But what about that brother of Ygraine's… err… what's-his-face? He was a wraith. How did Uther kill him with the sword? Don't tell me he had the power inside of him all along too?"

"Sh, sh," murmured Kilgarrah as the gap in the wall behind them did not take kindly to Paralelsky's words. "Young lady, I really must ask that you stop poking plot holes."

Paralelsky didn't know what to say for a full minute.

Then she frowned. "But… you've sent that poor girl into mortal peril!"

Kilgarrah looked up from his copy of _The Daily Prophet_ and rolled his eyes. "Are you still wittering on about that?"

"She's gone wandering off into a bandit-infested forest in the middle of Medieval England for no good reason! She's left all her friends behind!"

Kilgarrah opened his mouth to respond, when instead a rather funky tune started up behind him and he tapped his large foot along with the beat.

"S-s-s-s…"

Paralelsky frowned. "Why are you hissing at me?"

"A-a-a-a F-f-f-f E-e-e-e T-t-t-t Y-y-y-y. Safe, dance! We can dance if we want to! We can leave your friends behind!"

"Excuse me?"

"'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance well they're no friends of mine!"

Paralelsky was intending to ask what was going on. Instead she said: "I say! We can go where we want to, a place where they will never find! And we can act like we come from out of this world, leave the real one far behind!"

"And we can dance!" they declared in unison.

They then demonstrated this fact with some serious moves. Well… err, some serious fidgeting, skipping, clapping and thrusting their arms around them at weird angles in a shape vaguely resembling a box. Because, isn't that really what _The Safety Dance_ is all about?

The fundamental rip in the plot-character continuum behind them peered out from behind the curtains to watch all of this with interest. It might have been an inanimate object, but that doesn't mean it wasn't sorely tempted to join in. Especially as Kilgarrah span round and round in clumsy circles, nearly knocking Paralelsky over with his tail. It did look like fun.

But of course, plot holes don't dance. That would be silly.

**.**

Gwen was back in her cottage. Blubbering. Her bunnies had got tired of consoling her and had begun bunny-racing championships in her various pots and pans by launching themselves off the tops of tables.

This could have continued for an alarming amount of time and would inevitably have ended with somebody getting hurt, had they not been interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" snuffled Gwen.

"It's me."

Gwen wiped her nose with a passing flying bunny. "Who's 'me'?"

"Oh, yeah right. Hehe. It's Arrow'Nash."

"I don't want to talk to you right now, Nashy."

"_Please_ Gwennie, let me in! I'm sorry for what I said!"

"Then why did you say it in the first place?" asked Gwen, getting into defiant Guinevere mode and stomping to her feet, before feeling sorry for herself, crying and slumping back down into plain old Gwen mode. "It was really mean."

"Just let me in! Then maybe we can talk about it?"

Gwen hesitated, applying Chap Stick because of all that lip-chewing authors were always making her do.

"Please, Gwennie! I brought cake!"

Gwen considered this. "What flavour is it?"

"It's chocolate."

Well, that changed everything. Gwen let Arrow'Nash in so fast her face - which had formerly been pressed up against the closed door - hit the floor with a resounding thud.

"Err, sorry," Arrow'Nash apologised to the bunny she had squashed as Gwen helped her up and into a chair.

"Where's the cake?" Gwen inquired, looking suspiciously about Arrow'Nash's person and wondering where she might have hidden it.

"Um… I might have made the cake up. But I needed to come in! Don't eat me!" Arrow'Nash lifted her hands up over her face to shield herself from the wrath of Gwen.

Surprisingly, Gwen was not very wrathful. She couldn't be bothered with it. She just plopped down into her chair and commenced sniffling pitifully.

"Look… I'm sorry I was mean, Gwennie. It's not your fault you can't make your mind up, they're both very hawt and the writers of the show don't give you much air time to do a whole lotta thinking…"

"That's not why, Nashy," Gwen confessed, looking up at her friend with a tear-stained face. "If I tell you something, do you promise you won't tell anyone else? Anyone in the whole world?"

Arrow'Nash thought about this. "Not even the dragon?"

"Especially not the dragon. He gossips like Gaius."

Arrow'Nash paused, looked into Gwen's eyes and then made her decision. "Okay Gwennie. I promise. I won't tell anyone."

"Pinky promise?"

Arrow'Nash gasped. "Pinky promise?"

Gwen looked serious. "I know it's drastic, but it's the only way I can be sure you mean it."

Slowly, Arrow'Nash nodded. "Okay… Pinky promise." She offered her littlest finger up to Gwen's to be linked and shaken, to make that most solemnest of oaths that cannot be broken.

"On a separate note," added Gwen, as they withdrew their little fingers. "Don't you hate it when vulgar American phrases pollute our lovely English language?"

Arrow'Nash blinked. "Err… What?"

"Oh… Never mind."

"So…" Arrow'Nash ground her teeth together. "What were you going to tell me?"

Gwen drew a deep breath. "Okay, the truth is: I'm schizophrenic."

"Huh?"

"I have multiple personalities. Well, I have two personalities, to be exact. One is called Gwen and the other is called Guinevere. Gwen is shy and quiet and self-deprecating and doesn't challenge her superiors; Guinevere is strong and feisty and basically does nothing _but_ challenge her superiors. You see, Gwen couldn't possibly be in love with a prince, she loves Lancelot, but Guinevere loves Arthur. And herself. A lot. Do you understand my problem now, Nashy?"

Arrow'Nash gulped. "Wow. I really, really, honestly was not expecting that."

"So, what should I do?"

"Um… See a therapist?

Gwen burst into another round of tears and buried her head in her hands.

Arrow'Nash sighed and eyed the bunnies around her. "Hey Gwen?"

"Mm?" replied Gwen despondently.

"These bunnies are cute… Mind if I take one?"

Gwen waved a hand at Arrow'Nash to tell her to knock herself out, so Arrow'Nash decided she'd quite like the fluorescent orange bunny that was currently doing upside down cartwheels across the ceiling.

**.**

Morgause massaged her temples soothingly, screwing her eyes shut tightly and trying to block out any awareness of Morgana.

"Have you done it yet?"

It wasn't going very well.

"No ssssissster!" she hissed irritably, dropping her hands to her sides and reminding herself that Morgana was fragile and not to be punched in the face.

"Well how much longer is it going to take?" whined Morgana, stomping her anachronistic high-heeled boots into the muddy forest floor.

"Morgana, please," Morgana knew she was in trouble if her sister was using her name. "If you persist in being an unbearable nuisance I may never succeed in contacting Nimueh! Is that what you want, Morgana? Do you want to be responsible for scuppering our dreams of forming a girl band?"

"No…" Morgana answered, scuffing her aforementioned anachronistic high-heeled boots in the mud.

"Good! Now, let me try again!" Morgause put her hands to her head and hummed. "Hmm… Argh! Why isn't this working? We've always been able to establish a mental connection before!"

"Maybe Nimueh's dead?" mused Morgana, having a rare moment of genius only to be shot down by her sister.

"Don't be ridiculous. She's the most powerful mistress of the Old Religion. With the exception of myself, of course. Who could possibly kill her?"

"Well… maybe she's just ignoring you?"

Morgause frowned. She couldn't imagine why on earth anyone would ever want to ignore her, but she was forced to accept it as the only possible explanation for her current situation.

"Oh! Heavens!" declared Morgause, flouncing dramatically to the floor in a puddle of shiny cape and looking very, very angry. "What am I supposed to do now? We can't be M n M without an N! And Nimueh really was very good. She put several of the druid elders to shame on karaoke night."

Morgana blinked. "Um…"

Morgause turned, to see Mordred sitting on the floor not far away from her. "You! Boy! Can you sing?"

Mordred considered this. "I don't know." He looked up at Morgana, "Is this a trick?"

Morgana shrugged.

"Well, try! We could be the most powerful magical evil singing trio ever to rule the face of the earth! Just imagine the harmonies! And the pillaging!"

Mordred winced. "You want me to sing?"

"Yes!" snapped Morgause. "Stand up straight! Suck in your stomach, take a deep breath and project your voice! And don't sing down your nose! I'll cut it off if you do!"

"To spite your face!" interjected Slartibartfast, trying again. He was ignored. He scowled and thought to himself that Morgause ought to stop threatening to cut people's noses off if she didn't want to hear that joke.

Mordred breathed in deeply, looking warily at the one witch assessing his every movement and the other witch cleaning out under her fingernails. He wished he'd stuck with that clan of cannibals he'd met on his travels. At least they were polite.

"We're walking in the air. We're floating in the moonlit sky. The people far below are sleeping as we fly," Mordred sang, in the most clear, pure, beautiful voice any of the listeners had ever heard.

The Terrences, who, up until now had been practising their harmonies in order to be as sharp as possible for entering an a cappella competition which was being held in Cenred's old kingdom, that they planned to enter on the return journey, stopped midway through their sha-la-la-la-la-las and stared in awe at the tiny, evil little boy making the angelic sounds.

"I'm holding very tight. I'm riding in the midnight blue. I'm finding I can fly so high above with you."

Kizzia and jaqtkd paused midway through trying to work out their location and any possible escape routes through the surrounding fields (which were apparently, in the 21st Century, a car park) on Google maps, whilst tied to a tree, and listened in sheer disbelief. Kizzia reluctantly shed a tear. Jaq wondered if she'd finally gone insane.

"Far across the world, the villages go by like dreams; the rivers and the hills, the forests and the streams. Children gaze, open-mouthed, taken by surprise; nobody down below believes their eyes."

Morgana retrieved a tissue from her sleeve and sneezed. Loudly.

"We're surfing in the air, we're swimming in the frozen sky; we're drifting over icy mountains floating by. Suddenly swooping low on an ocean deep, rousing up a mighty monster from his sleep!"

"Where?" asked Morgause, turning around suddenly with her sword at the ready. She was ignored by everybody else, thoroughly enchanted by the melodic noises the little boy was making.

"And walking in the air, we're dancing in the midnight sky! And everyone who sees us greets us as we fly. We're walking in the air. We're walking in the air…" Mordred tailed off and looked uncertainly up at the crowd of gaping faces, all of whom had unconsciously crept closer to him whilst he was singing (other than Jaq and Kizzia, because they were tied to a tree) as if he had been emitting some kind of irresistible force.

"That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," announced a Terrence. The other Terrences agreed and nodded their heads.

"Mordred!" gasped Morgana, with her hand on her heart. "I… I… I love you!" she screeched, swooping down to collect the little boy's face in her hands and pinching it with all her might. "I'm never going to let that wicked Uther Pendragon hurt you, not ever!" Mordred felt it was unnecessary to point out that he didn't really need her protection, since he was a lot more powerful than her and she was, frankly, a bit useless. That just didn't seem like a very nice thing to say. "Sweet, sweet little Mordred!" Morgana fell to the floor and continued sobbing.

"I don't understand how such an evil little child can make such wonderful noises," mumbled Kizzia, shaking her head in confusion as the tears flowed freely down her face.

Jaq said her nothing. Her gaping jaw, hanging open in confusion, spoke for her.

"Child, it was like your soul was singing!" declared Slartibartfast. For once, he wasn't told to shut up. He could have hugged himself.

Morgause realised she was the only one who hadn't said anything. She stuck her sword, which she was still waving around slightly uselessly, in the ground next to her. "I suppose it didn't make me want to kill you."

Mordred shrugged and sat back down, staring quite determinedly at a patch of the forest floor.

"So," Morgause got to her feet. "Will you join our band? We could be called MMM…"

Morgana stopped crying to peek out from under her hood. "Like mmm, that was good?"

"Exactly," agreed Morgause.

"I like it," Morgana mused. "Our first song could be Yummy, Yummy, Yummy."

Morgause frowned. "What?"

"You know… Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I got love in my tummy and I feel like a-lovin you!"

"Ooh!" added the Terrences, for effect.

Morgause continued to frown. "We shall not be singing that song."

Morgana went back to crying.

"Mordred, will you join our band?" pressed Morgause.

Mordred opened his mouth to deliver some kind of cryptic or non-committal response, but then he changed his mind. "No," he said, simply.

"No…?"

"No, thank you."

"Why not?" hissed Morgause, narrowing in on her target.

"Because I'm tired of having my talents exploited by adults who manipulate them for their own ends. I just want to be a kid."

Morgause frowned. "You want to be a young goat?"

"I just want to do things normal children do…" Mordred's eyes lit up suddenly. "I want a goldfish!"

Morgause inspected the child. "If I procure a goldfish for you, will you join my band?"

"I'll think about it."

Morgause snarled. She hated children. Especially her own. But it was probably better not to get into that right now.

Morgause clasped her hands together behind her back and did a strange, wiggly dance. "Fishius… fishius… goldius… bowlius!"

And then, all of a sudden, in Mordred's hands there was a small goldfish bowl, filled with water, housing a little, golden fish.

Mordred made a resolution: he decided, right then and there, that he would love that fish. He would bestow the one shred of humanity left in his soul upon that fish. He would cherish it and care for it and call it Scales (a very original name, yes, he did come up with it all by himself). Nothing in Mordred's life mattered more to him than that making that fish happy. Nothing.

Morgause turned away from Mordred, who was happily fondling his bowl, satisfied that she seemed to have taken care of that situation for the moment.

Slowly, everyone returned to what they had been doing, over the horrendous sounds of Morgana wailing.

"Oh, for the love of the Old Religion!" exclaimed Morgause (who had agreed to forsake the expression _for the love of Camelot_, as it seemed to upset her sister so). "Stop whimpering, sssisster!"

Morgana wiped her dribbling nose. "Why are you always so mean to me, Morgause?"

Morgause took a step back. "Excuse me?"

Morgana stood up for herself, both literally and metaphorically. "Why are you always picking on me? You always seem to just make me feel worse! Why can't you just give me a cuddle! Sometimes people need to be cuddled!"

Morgause frowned. "Well! I… I stroke your face a lot. Is that not sufficient?"

"No! It is not the same! It's actually a little creepy."

"Oh! Oh, I'm creepy, am I?"

"No, Morgause, I didn't say _you_ were creepy, I said that your compulsive need to stroke things was creepy, that's what I said."

"Well, if I'm so creepy then why don't you go and find yourself another sibling who'll take care of you and put up with all of your whining and your moaning and your seventy-seven changes of dress each and every morning!"

Morgana gasped as if her sister had struck her face.

"Oh, of course! Your only other sibling has banned you from entering his home on pain of death! He's probably fed up of you stealing his shoes without asking!"

"For your information I would never steal Arthur's shoes without asking! His feet are much smaller than mine! And if I'm such a hindrance to you than maybe I should just leave!"

"Fine!"

"FINE!"

"Well go then, ssssisster! I need you about as much as that maidservant, Gwen, needs hair curlers!" screeched Morgause at the top of her voice.

"Well I need you about as much as Cenred needs another pair of leather trousers!" wailed Morgana.

"Oh? Well I need you about as much Geoffrey of Monmouth needs advice on matters of romance!"

"Ha! Well I need you about as much as Gaius needs roller skates!"

Morgause was fuming. "WELL I NEED YOU ABOUT AS MUCH AS THAT FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE!"

Morgana was about to reply when she was silenced by the sudden appearance of a puff of glittery smoke and a bicycle.

Mordred looked happily down at his fish, wondering curiously how this bicycle would be used by his new friend.

Before anybody could respond to this strange turn of events by doing anything other than staring, a girl appeared with a sword.

"Oh s***," said XxMileena-chanxX, startled by the sudden clogging up of her trachea with asterisks, creating a horribly unpleasant choking sensation. "I have a sword…" she wheezed at Morgana and Morgause, who were looking more amused than concerned by her presence. "And I'm not afraid to use it." She turned to look imploringly at a Terrence. "Could… could you just," she gasped for air and pointed at her back.

"I think she wants you to pat her on the back," offered another Terrence.

The first Terrence obliged and sent three asterisks shooting out of XxMileena-chanxX's mouth and cartwheeling happily off into the distance.

"That was weird," remarked Kizzia eventually.

"She is with you then!" exclaimed Morgause. "Remove her sword and tie her up! Tie them all up!"

The Terrences tied XxMileena-chanxX to the tree alongside Kizzia and jaqtkd.

"Now… we must make haste and travel to Camelot! Untie them! Untie them all! Let's ride, sister!"

Kizzia rolled her eyes at Jaq, but Jaq didn't roll her eyes back. Jaq was scribbling something that looked suspiciously like Vegetables' battle strategies onto a letter marked '_Dear Morgause'_. Kizzia frowned. Had Jaq betrayed them?

**.**

Back in Camelot's Lower Town the Punctuation Resistance was colon-ising.

Having repaired the damage done to the formerly-widowed 'semi's the colons and semicolons were back in business and preparing to strike. Their movement had gathered much momentum and support from the apostrophe's and from the apostrophes', but for the exclamation marks no action that wasn't radical action was acceptable.

And so the punctuation had become extremely divided about the best way to move forward and protest against the injustices that had been done to them. Most significantly, they had split into the radical PA (Punctuation Against, who still could not decide what it was they were against, being more concerned with wreaking havoc than anything else) led by the erratic exclamation marks, and the moderate PU, or the Punctuation Union, who were supported by the more commonly used punctuation, who had reputations to protect, and were still prepared to negotiate with Uther and the council to try and work towards peace for all.

Peace had never really appealed to the exclamation marks anyway.

The PA and the PU were no longer talking to one another. Colons would talk amongst themselves when they spotted per cent signs walking down the street. Question marks would shrug and stare blankly into the faces of commas who used to be their friends. Forwards and backwards slashes might even be provoked to duel with one another.

The round end of a bracket bumped into a full stop as they passed and the full stop spat in the bracket's fat face. "Watch where you're going, buddy!"

It was awful.

And that was just the beginning.

Then the PA declared that all of its members were to remove themselves from speech and writing. From that day forwards, not only were there no exclamation marks to exclaim with, no question marks to question with and no brackets to insert random pieces of information into sentences with, but, since the PA had managed to persuade the quotation marks over to their cause with the promise of free speech, everyone in Camelot was mute.

The PU's negotiations with the council were not going well, from what anyone could tell. Uther was angry, and when he was angry his handwriting was awful, so it was hard to tell what he was trying to shout. But it didn't look too good. He was certainly waving his arms around a lot.

Vegetables made calming hand gestures and passed Uther a white board and pen.

IF YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF THE PUNCTUATION THEN WHY CAN'T YOU ORDER THEM TO RETURN THE SPEECH MARKS love Uther x

he scrawled angrily.

The head colon scratched the part of itself that it scratched when it was concerned. It was then told by its companion - a hyphen - not to do that in polite company.

The colon scribbled quickly on a scrap of paper:

Because they are under the jurisdiction of the PA. These are scare tactics deliberately designed to disrupt and cause panic. If you bow to it then they will just keep going, who knows what demands they will make.

Uther wiped his previous message off the board with his sleeve and ignored the sounds of Geoffrey of Monmouth tutting disapprovingly at the thought of what might happen to the fabric. After all, if he wanted to, he could easily make a case for the current situation being entirely Geoffrey's fault. But Uther wasn't really in the mood for playing scapegoat today. That game was only fun when there was magic and alcohol involved.

But before Uther could write his message Gaius bustled into the hall with a bedraggled looking OC in tow and a piece of paper that read:

_We've got one. It's a speaker. He was midway through speaking when the PA withdrew, so he's stuck without a quotation mark to end his speech. He can't stop talking._

A closer look at the OC in question and all in the room ascertained that his lips were, in fact, moving at tremendous speed as he mumbled nervously to himself.

Uther clearly decided on a new message for his board:

YES VERY INTERESTING BUT I DON'T SEE HOW THIS IS GOING TO BE OF ANY USE TO US love Uther x

Gaius paused and considered this. He wrote:

_Do you speak sign language_

On his hand.

…Yes…

answered the OC, before returning to his mad ramblings.

Gaius looked up at the assembled crowd and snatched Uther's board off him.

_Does anybody else speak sign language_

They all shook their heads

_Great._

Vegetables suddenly jumped up and down as if she'd been poked and waved her arm in the air mouthing,

**Pick me, Pick me, Pick me**

Unfortunately, none of them could lip read, otherwise the problem would have been solved a long time ago.

Someone passed Vegetables the white board and she scrawled:

**Release the authors from the dungeon. They're just the kind of think tank you need right now. I'm sure they'd be able to help us.**

She waited for everyone to read it and was just about to pass the white board back when she suddenly snapped her fingers and scribbled:

**Apostrophes**

The apostrophe in the corner rolled his eyes, because she should have written apostrophes', according to their current manifesto. No one could ever get it right.

**We could use apostrophes instead of quotation marks. It's done in some lower budget fanfics.**

They all considered this possibility, turning to the apostrophes' - who by now had changed themselves to the apostrophe's anyway - who were crossing their arms and shaking their heads.

Absolutely not. 

They wrote.

We do enough hard work as it is. Most of the time we're doing work that's not in our job description. We refuse to take on anymore.

Uther growled and snatched the white board.

YOU WILL HAVE TO COMPLY BECAUSE THIS IS RIDICULOUS WE CANNOT CONDUCT MEETINGS LIKE THIS ALSO I HAVE AUTHORS IN MY DUNGEON THAT'S NEWS TO ME love Uther x

The speaker in the corner had increased his volume and was mumbling something about Gay Pride and the ale at Al's Ale House being better than the mead at Moe's.

WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT GAY PRIDE

…The Gay Pride parade is scheduled to happen…

The speaker checked his watch.

…In about an hour from now. I thought everybody knew about that…

He returned to his diatribe about various drinking establishments, being unable to stop speaking for any length of time whatsoever.

Vegetables frowned and wrestled the board away from a reluctant Uther.

**I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let my authors out of the dungeon asap also is that guy wearing a watch**

That was when the tearing happened. It sounding like the Council Chamber itself was a cat with a fur ball lodged in its throat. Suddenly a large hole appeared out of nowhere in particular and rowellylovesgryffindor apparated. Just because she could.

Uther pointed and tried to yell MAGIC, but he had no quotation marks, so he couldn't speak. He contended himself with jumping up and down erratically and thrusting his finger at her as his face gradually turned purple from all of his repressed screaming.

Nobody really took any notice. It was the third time he'd done that in the course of the meeting.

Vegetables nodded at the new arrival and shook her hand, trying to introduce her to the assembled dignitaries and members of the council, but not really being able to do much more than point and stick her thumb up or down, or wiggle her hand around and make 'mmm' noises, to indicate that the jury was still out on that particular fella.

Uther eventually recovered from his temporary bout of mania and sent the guards stationed outside the door off with instructions to go and fetch the authors. Since he hadn't been left with the white board - Vegetables still had that - he'd had to communicate that through the means of interpretive dance. Still, the guards seemed to have understood his message. Either that or they were going to stretch their daughters.

He then returned to the more important matter of trying to persuade the apostrophes, who were quite adamant that they knew their rights and they were tired of having them ignored, to submit to a greater good.

It turned out that Gaius was already way ahead of him.

_Think not of yourselves, but think of others. In life you have to make sacrifices and sometimes the hardest sacrifices for you are the best decisions you will ever make for those others._

Uther blinked. He was truly amazed. It was almost as if Gaius had done this before. But when did Gaius have any spare time to go around convincing people to do the right thing?

The apostrophes - who had finally decided to stop that stupid apostrophe's, apostrophes' lark, as it was apparently making it hard for them to get girlfriends - looked solemnly at one another, and then nodded.

Everyone waited for something to happen.

Nothing did happen.

No one knew whether or not to say anything.

The speaker shut up. He clamped a hand over his mouth and wept tears of joy. He skipped out of the room, making a silent vow to himself never to speak again. Not even if it was absolutely necessary.

That was when they decided that they ought to try speaking, they just couldn't think of what to say first.

Then came the knock at the door.

There stood assembled a motley crew of authors and guards. In fact, the guards appeared to have been accompanied by a few knights.

'The authors shall sit around the table and do something useful,' Uther commanded, resisting the urge to dance with glee now that he could speak again.

The guards and knights did not leave once their charges were dismissed.

Uther frowned. 'What is the meaning of this,' he intended to ask.

The guards looked nervously at each other for support, until one knight - his name was Harold, if that means anything to you - stepped forwards. 'We are the Red Cloaks Union, and before you ask: no, we're not Communists.'

Uther didn't know what they were talking about, but he decided to let them continue.

'Whilst working in a Crossover in a strange fandom known as Star Trek we encountered a curious people known as the red shirts. From talking to them we learned that they suffer from a similar affliction to us: dying. Regularly. For no good reason. We are standing up for ourselves. We do not wish for our lifeless bodies to be scattered randomly all over the set just to make a gory picture any longer. We are real pretend people with real pretend feelings and we have a right to not die in horrible, gruesome and grisly ways."

If Uther was perfectly honest with himself, considering all of the demands he had heard from the PU that morning, the Right to Not Die in Horrible, Gruesome and Grisly Ways sounded fairly reasonable to him. But Uther was fed up of reasoning with people.

Just as he opened his mouth to declare judgement on these folk Arthur popped his head round the door, smiling like a fool in love.

dad can i come in

'No,' Uther snapped. 'No of course you can't come in. You've been banned and you know why.'

but daaaad

'You can't come in here. Your awful punctuation purge led to all of the problems we're dealing with right now.'

'You killed my mum,' mumbled a full stop sorrowfully.

err yeah sorry about that

'And you know that we do not approve of your upcoming nuptials.'

'Hey Uther,' Vegetables interjected, wafting a piece of paper under his nose. 'We've got a list for you. Next time you ask a question, try raising one of your eyebrows. That was Whirlwind421's suggestion. And next time you want to look surprised, try making an 'o' with your mouth. I think that came from Lupa Dracolis. And Gaius could you email the author and say that next time someone's asking a question they could 'inquire' or 'ask' or 'demand' or 'query' or 'interrogate' or 'investigate' or just use a thesaurus.'

'What was that last one,' inquired Gaius.

Vegetables rolled her eyes. 'Never mind. Hey, I have a question: How come Arthur can speak without quotation marks but it caused all those problems for us, huh,"

Everyone in the room blinked at her as a plot hole ripped itself into existence and Catindahat, who was not a cat, but was wearing a hat, looked expectantly at them.

'And how come the knights of Camelot knew what Communism was,' Vegetables continued, because, apparently, once she'd started, there was no stopping her.

There was the sound of more ripping.

'O s' said Jissai, which plainly made no sense. Everyone frowned at him.

A plot hole spat MerlinJustGiveMeTheMuffins out right on her rear end, making it rather numb, but no one paid her the slightest jot of attention.

Jissai flailed his arms in the air and pointed to his throat, desperately trying to breathe but failing.

'I think he's choking,' squealed V.

'Quick, someone do the Heimlich,' ordered YOUTHFULwolfie.

Gaius plodded slowly towards Jissai but he wasn't getting there fast enough on his old legs. Just as it seemed all hope was lost, House entered the room.

'Stand aside,' commanded the sarcastic American doctor with the walking stick, strolling up to Jissai and, in one fell swoop, dislodging a pile of asterisks from his throat. House shook his head and crushed them in his hand. 'I've only seen this once before. The asterisks have decided to attack. They refused to come out in your speech and became lodged in your throat. Young man, you will survive, but if you ever swear again you could fatally damage your trachea.'

Jissai's face twitched. 'Are you saying that if I swear I'll die,'

'That's exactly what I'm saying.'

'Oh c- I mean that's not good.'

Arthur looked up at Uther from the doorway.

can i come in now

'No.'

how about now

'No.'

but you let him in and he used a bad word

'He didn't actually use the bad word, Arthur, he just tried to. And you saw what happened to him when he did. There's a reason why those words are banned in Camelot, Arthur. They must be kept away from children. They're dangerous.'

Arthur nodded solemnly

i understand father can i come in now

'No.'

how about now

'No.'

'Uther, it is time for our meeting to start,' Geoffrey muttered, looking uncomfortably at Arthur.

what meeting

'It is something you wouldn't understand…'

'Boys _Will_ Be Boys,' Geoffrey of Monmouth declared suddenly. 'The council of Camelot has decided that your wedding is unnatural and unmedieval.'

'Unmedieval isn't a word,' Cherrytree007 pointed out from the side lines.

'I'm not paying you to talk,' snapped Uther.

Nobody bothered reminding Uther that he wasn't actually paying them at all because they quite liked living.

'We are going to pass new Boys _Will _Be Boys legislation, forcing you to act like Jack-the-Lads. For the love of Camelot!"

no

'I'm afraid it's for your own good, Arthur.'

'If I could interrupt,' mumbled Harold, who had waited patiently for quite long enough. Three of the five knights he'd brought with him had already been struck dead by random flying weapons, just to make the scene more dramatic, and one of the guards had been eaten by a passing monster, which was roaming the halls. Someone probably ought to deal with that, actually. 'The Red Cloaks Union is on strike. That means that both the knights of Camelot and Camelot's guards refuse to perform their duties until you can ensure that we can perform them without abnormal risk of death. We believe this is a reasonable request.'

you would betray camelot by refusing to do your duties

'You don't understand, Sire. We are all equal and wish to be treated as such. We have just as much right to life as you. It's not that we aren't happy to lay down our lives for you, it's just that we don't get the chance.'

oh come on you cant compare my life to your life

'What do you mean, Sire?'

im the main character here my names actually in the summary i checked the other day on gaius laptop if i die then theres actually no story for anyone to read so theres no point in any of you being here

Harold contemplated this and Arthur sauntered off. He had to get to the Gay Pride parade on time.

**.**

The Gay Pride parade went fairly well, actually. There was lots of pink and lots of singing and lots of cuddly animals. Largely because Arthur had left Merlin in charge of the decorating. Or at least, that was what Arthur claimed.

Some of the nameless OC citizens of Camelot watched the parade go by with bored expressions on their faceless faces.

'What do you think about the parade, Sandra,' asked Neil, as he picked his nose.

Sandra shrugged. 'I don't really care. Why,'

'Keith over there says that it's wrong and against nature. He says that's what King Uther says. He says it's the Middle Ages and that's what we should all think. What do you think,'

Sandra frowned. 'I don't know what he's talking about.'

A plot hole decided this would be a nice time for it to claw its way into existence.

'Hello there,' greeted Unformal Sorrelle with a smile.

''Sup,' murmured Neil and Sandra.

Another plot hole churned out MoonlightSpiritWolf who attempted historical accuracy with a, 'Greetings.' Then stopped to think about that and said, 'No, Good Morrow. Wait, it's afternoon isn't it. I'd planned this so well and everything…'

'Howdy,' shouted Keith from over the road, who was actually quite a nice bloke.

And yet another plot hole deposited Laughy-Taffy the Grape amongst them.

She didn't say anything and so they didn't say anything to her.

'How do you guys feel about the parade,' asked Unformal Sorrelle, not quite sure what was going on and where the question mark had gone, but prepared to roll with it.

'Meh,' they both responded flatly.

'Epicipipical,' Sorrelle replied.

'You're all wrong,' yelled Keith.

Neil and Sandra shrugged at the authors.

As it turned out, none of the OCs in the story really cared at all about Gay Pride, Gay Shame or Gay Anything. Because of course, they had been written into a slash story. It didn't matter that they were _supposed_ to be medieval. They were tolerant of it because it was their genre. Why shouldn't they be?

Of course it didn't make any sense and the authors weren't sure what to do about it.

A pregnant pause dashed past them down the street.

**.**

Gaius returned to his chambers with a sour look on his face. He didn't know who that flashy doctor thought he was, but now he was offering Uther advice about his shoulder! If he thought he could steal Gaius' position away from him then he would need to think again.

And then the author published an author's note.

_Well that's a rap, folks! See yu next chapta ;)_

And of course, that simple typo changed everything. Appearing from out of nowhere, Elyan began laying down the beat with some serious beatboxing, soon to be accompanied by Leon, Percival and Gwaine. Lancelot, unfortunately, was still far too busy mourning the loss of his banjo to beatbox.

Gaius, who had suddenly donned a sideways cap, a pair of shades and some amazingly shiny bling, began to rap.

'I'm MC Gaius

And I'm here to stay,

You hear that House

I ain't goin' away

I got my brothers the knights

They protect my ass

While Merlin's away

Flirtin' wit some lass

House you messed

Wit the wrong old fogey

Coz this potions master

He can make yo bogeys

Drip drip drip

Like dat kitchen tap

There'll be a big ole puddle

In yo lap

I can make you purple

Make you green make you brown

I can make you irresistible

To every minger in town

So you best run now

Grab that stick and flee

Coz you just a little boy

And you can't handle me.'


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Um... Methinks I has some apologising to do :S It has been shockingly long since I updated... Sorry! I hope you can forgive me and enjoy this chapter! Authors who are waiting to come in and people who have given me ideas that I've said I want to use - it will happen, I promise, there's just so much mad stuff going on in this story at the moment! Here we go with that credit thing what I'm so adamant about doing: aisle/isle I think might have been Jissai's suggestion, Kitty O wanted to hug Uther, Storylover456 was owed a present, Green Day own their own songs (unsurprisingly), both the songs the Terrences sing aren't mine, and many, many people wanted to know what a pregnant pause gives birth to. I'm incredibly tired now, so I think I'm going to put this chapter up as it is. If you see an idea you've given me and I haven't credited you, _please please please_ let me know, because it's not deliberate.**

**EDIT: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS FRAGMENTED BITS OF SORT-OF SPOILERS, BECAUSE IT TRAIPSES INTO SERIES 4 TERRITORY. NEXT CHAPTER I WILL HAVE A SYSTEM IN PLACE FOR READERS WHO DON'T WANT TO KNOW STUFF (THAT WILL ALSO BE FUNNY) BUT I'M SORRY IF I'VE GOT ON ANYONE'S NERVES BY TELLING THEM STUFF THEY DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW. YOU HAVE NOW BEEN WARNED. **

"I do."

"Then by the power vested in me by the author, who created this story, I now pronounce you… err… man and man. I mean, um, what do I mean? Husband and husband…" The priest flipped through what appeared to be his bible. "Um... This really isn't helping." He looked up imploringly at the author, who clearly hadn't thought this part through properly, then shrugged. "Whatever, you're married. I think. You may now kiss each other."

Merlin stared down at their intertwined hands and sighed happily.

Arthur looked around himself at the island they were currently stranded on. He blinked.

"How did we get here?"

Merlin opened his mouth to answer but then he too blinked. The dazed look that had formerly clouded his eyes suddenly vanished and he was left with his jaw gaping open stupidly. "I… I don't know."

They looked around them at the sea water lapping at the shore.

"It's very romantic," Merlin offered eventually.

"Merlin…" Arthur muttered, looking warily at the priest who was watching them with interest. "Did we just do what I think we did?"

Merlin patted his swollen belly and grinned. "That depends. What are you thinking we just did?"

"_Mer_lin! Get your mind out of the gutter!" Arthur rolled his eyes. "I think we just got married."

**.**

Back in Camelot, everyone suddenly found themselves somewhere other than where they had previously been. They all blinked to express their confusion then looked around themselves.

Uther glanced down warily at Kitty O, who was hugging him, and frowned.

"I understand all of your character defects, and I think you're not such a bad guy really!" she told him, as she snuggled under his cape.

Uther reached up with a gloved finger to his cheek, where a tear was trickling down.

"Excuse me, young lady…" he murmured, peeling the strange girl off him, who, when she was separated from the King, looked just as confused about what was going on as he did. "Just what is going on here?" he demanded of the people around him, several of whom were poking one another, to check they were real.

MerlinJustGiveMeTheMuffins put her hand up. "If I can speak without being executed, I think it looks like we're having a meeting."

Everybody else seemed to agree with this.

"But, why are we all wearing matching T-shirts?" inquired Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe, plucking at her rapidly unravelling hem.

"I think the real question is: Why do they all say _Team Arthur_?" muttered Whirlwind421, looking down curiously at the large picture of Arthur's grinning face plastered on her chest.

"They don't _all_ say _Team Arthur_…" Arrow'Nash observed, looking a little worried at the _Team Lancelot_ slogan she was sporting, happily decorated with sequins.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, who had previously been wearing a _Team Lancelot_ T, having clocked that he was clearly on the wrong side, was in the business of wriggling out of his in the corner and pretending that he'd just forgotten to get dressed that morning, leaving everyone seeing far more flabby librarian flesh than they had ever needed to see.

Uther growled. "Why is there not a _Team Uther_?" he demanded. "I'm the coolest!" he stomped his foot angrily and folded his arms across his son's face on his chest.

"Um…" Catindahat tried not to laugh. "I think it's about Arwen versus Gwencelot…"

The authors (and Gaius, who was now standing as far away from the repugnantly shirtless Geoffrey of Monmouth as possible) all ummed and ahhed knowingly.

Uther growled yet again. "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

A terrified silence followed, except for someone literally squeaking in fear. That was most probably Arrow'Nash.

"Hang on a minute…" Vegetables jumped off the throne she'd been slouching on. "Just when did we get the quotation marks back?"

They all stopped and thought about the conversation they'd just had.

"Oh yeah…" murmured YOUTHFULwolfie, suddenly very aware of the fact that she was actually _speaking_.

"I'm so confused…" murmured Cherrytree007, scratching her head. "Arrgh!" she screamed suddenly, investigating her scalp with her fingers, "I'm bald!"

"Oh!" Jissai exclaimed, suddenly looking rather pleased with himself. "Well… I guess that explains why I'm holding this razor…"

"Will somebody _please_ explain what's going on?" begged V.

"I do believe I can help with that…" Gaius declared, emerging from the shadows with his blackberry in hand. "Whilst you've all been chatting, I have been checking my emails for story alerts and such. As it turns out, our story has been updated, _finally_," he rolled his eyes at the ceiling here, and the author felt sheepish. "However it would appear that the author has… ahem… skipped a chapter."

Everybody blinked stupidly.

Gaius decided to elaborate. "The author has accidentally uploaded not the next chapter, but the chapter after that, consequently causing us to skip a whole chapter's worth of experiences…"

"I've done that before…" someone admitted, muttering under their breath so they couldn't be identified.

"That doesn't explain our choice of attire," Uther insisted, pointing at Arthur's nose.

"Actually, it does." Gaius shrugged, "Anything could have happened in the period in between… Why…" he laughed, "I might not even be Court Physician anymore, for all I know…"

They all chuckled heartily at this ridiculous notion. Who could possibly challenge Gaius for the position of Court Physician? What a silly idea. Uther would only fire the poor old man once, surely. No sensible King makes the same mistakes twice.

They had all forgotten, of course, that Uther was not necessarily a particularly sensible King.

In marched House, cane and all, looking smug, wearing a_ Team House_ T-Shirt.

Uther howled furiously. "How come he gets a shirt with his own name on it?" he demanded of the person next to him, who just happened to be Kitty O.

Kitty O looked sympathetically at Uther and patted his back awkwardly. "There, there… I'm sure we can get you a T-Shirt that says _Team Uther _on it, or even _Uther Rules_…" she suggested, smirking a little.

Uther scowled.

"Sorry," she coughed. "Bad time for a pun."

"What is the meaning of this?" Uther demanded of House, poking his chest as he tried to reinstate his superiority.

House blinked, looked down and shrugged. "I don't know, perhaps it's because I'm so damn awesome."

"You used a bad word!" Uther announced, looking over to Gaius for confirmation of this.

Gaius shrugged a bit. "Meh," he mumbled. "It's not _so_ bad. It's not on The List."

"The List?"

"Yes, The List of words you banned from Camelot, for being too naughty, because you wanted to protect the children's ears… Don't you remember any of this?"

Uther shrugged. "No. I guess I'm just crazy!"

Everybody laughed nervously at this and Uther looked slightly traumatised at them mocking him. Kitty O mumbled into Uther's ear, "Don't worry, they're laughing _with_ you, not _at_ you."

"_With_ me, not _at_ me," Uther repeated to himself.

"So… Gaius," House began, strutting towards the old man in an arrogant fashion. "Guess who the new Court Physician is?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"That's right! It's me!"

Gaius looked horrified and seemed unable to say anything intelligible beyond "ZOMG!"

"You know," House mused, as Gaius slowly lost track of all his mental faculties, "this isn't actually as fun as I thought it would be. I don't know what I was picturing."

MerlinJustGiveMeTheMuffins felt that this moment could probably use another interjection. "I really think maybe we should get back to that meeting… And, err, try and do something about Gaius. Yoga breathing?"

"Perhaps you were picturing dancing monkeys?" Arrow'Nash suggested, a dreamy look in her eyes as she dashed all hope of returning to a nice, semi-sane meeting.

House considered this. "Somehow I don't think dancing monkeys…"

"The tenth doctor back!" Whirlwind421 declared, hugging herself.

"I'd picture a party," suggested Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe. "We all deserve a party. I mean, we've all been working so hard… Or at least, it looks like we've been working so hard…" she gestured to the meeting table, where they had indeed got through several of Lancelot's special sparkly notepads (most probably without his permission) and drawn up multiple complex plans on a big whiteboard standing just behind it. "Look!" she declared suddenly. "There aren't even any bourbons left on the biscuit tray! We _must_ have been working hard…"

They all nodded in agreement with this.

"And I can only see a single jammy dodger," Catindahat pointed out. This turned out to be a bad idea.

"Mine!" screamed YOUTHFULwolfie, launching herself across the table to snatch said biscuit and snaffling it before anyone could do anything about it.

Jissai scowled at her and mumbled something about revenge and everybody ruing the day under his breath.

Vegetables coughed in an effort to recapture everybody's attention. "As important as the issue of why there are no chocolate bourbons left is, I think maybe we should leave it until later in the agenda… Do you think we could discuss the recent recovery of our punctuation? Or the fact that Gaius is no longer Court Physician and is banging his head repeatedly against the wall screaming EPIC FAIL? Or perhaps the fact that we've skipped an entire chapter and have no idea where anybody else is? There are only," she paused to count, "15 of us here. Uther, care to comment?"

"_With_ me," mumbled the King of Camelot. "Not _at_ me."

"That's… nice," was all Vegetables could say.

"Does anyone have a plan?" inquired Cherrytree007.

Geoffrey of Monmouth raised his hand.

"Not you!" she scoffed. "You don't count. V? Any ideas?"

"Why… Why isn't he wearing a shirt?" asked V, looking traumatised at the sight of Geoffrey's bare torso.

"I don't know, V. I just don't know," Cherrytree007 replied, shaking her head sadly.

"We need to try and find the others!" Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe decided. "I think we'll have to split up, and all go looking for different people."

The sound of melancholic wailing and tight-trouser-squeaking resounded from down the corridor.

"I'm sorry to say it," Jasper continued, "but somebody's going to have to go and cheer up Lancelot."

"Bagsy not me!" about seven people yelled at the same time.

"Jinx!" Arrow'Nash squealed excitedly without thinking.

Uther, having heard this, stopped muttering '_with_ me not_ at_ me' long enough to scream and point at her with a horrified look on his face. "Witchcraft…" he declared, turning maroon.

Arrow'Nash squeed and ran off down the corridor to go and do some sewing with Kilgarrah, who she found much less scary.

She left behind her six angry-looking people with hands clamped over their mouths who were making annoyed, humming sounds because she had forgotten to unjinx them.

Catindahat rolled her eyes. "Unjinx."

YOUTHFULwolfie looked most put out. "I can't believe the counter-curse is just unjinx…"

"Um…" Kitty O drew everyone's attention. "Are we going to do something about Gaius? He's usually the one who solves the problems by subtly telling everyone what to do… The Merlin format just won't work if he's gone mad!"

They all turned towards Gaius who was banging his head against the wall and mumbling, "_Angst, angst, angst…"_ to no one in particular.

"I think it's safe to say that we need to wean him off the YouTube videos," Cherrytree007 observed, after an uncomfortable silence had passed.

Right then and there, before anybody could say anything in response, something happened. Something jolted the Merlinverse; something turned it topsy-turvy and left Merlin minions all over the internet reeling with the force of it.

Electricity sparked and dazzled throughout the Council Chamber, buzzing with all the energy of an HD television set switched on for the first time.

The authors hummed with approval.

Gaius snapped out of his one man pity party and took in his surroundings and his brand new toga with an air of resignation.

"Gaius…?" Uther called out, landing on the floor as his eyes became glassy. "Morgana? Where is Morgana? I suddenly feel very confused about everything. I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT MY FEELINGS!"

"No one's asking you to," grumbled Gaius under his breath.

The authors turned to Gaius for an explanation and he waved a hand at them. "Oh… this happens at the start of every new season. He gets very melodramatic and feels the need to inform us of all of his new character developments. I find it highly irritating."

The authors collectively began to twitch.

Gaius sighed. "Yes, you did hear me correctly. That 'jolt of life' you just felt was the beginning of series four."

The group of people around him quickly descended into something closely resembling a gang of screaming gibbons.

Gaius' eyebrow took this opportunity to raise itself in order to help them register the severity of the situation. "I wouldn't get so excited about it if I were you. In fact, it's highly dangerous to be in an incomplete fanfiction when a new series has just begun, from this moment on anything could happen to us. Many characters and even entire storylines can find themselves on the wrong end of canon and be wiped out completely, or be blasted into Alternate Universes." The authors stared at him blankly. "We must be wary and vigilant." Gaius shook his head sadly. "If only they would just cancel us and leave Camelot in peace. We have enough to deal with…"

"It's so shiny and new!" V exclaimed, poking a pillar that was much more orange than it had been a few seconds ago. In fact, the whole room looked as if it had been spray-tanned.

"They've clearly got a bigger budget this year…" Jasper'sBaltimoreBabe assessed, looking up to the chandelier above their heads that no longer looked likely to fall to the floor and crush unsuspecting courtiers.

"I bet the CGI will be better too…" Jissai mused. "Even bigger, even scarier monsters!"

They all paused and paled slightly at this, turning back round to Gaius.

He nodded his head. "I see my words are finally sinking in. I swear… you authors are almost as thick-headed as Merlin, and _that_ is saying something."

"We need to find the others," Kitty O said quietly. "And warn them. Who knows where they are? They could be in real danger."

Everybody was in agreement with this, as Uther stared off morosely into the distance, trying to communicate his anguish through his watery irises. Geoffrey of Monmouth found himself resisting the rather strong urge to give his lordship a cuddle.

Lancelot wailed like a slowly dying badger in the distance.

"We'll decide who has to go and deal with Lancelot using a fair and impartial system," Whirlwind421 declared, and everybody thought this sounded alright. "Eeny meeny miny mo…"

**.**

V sighed warily and approached the sullen man who was lurking around one of Camelot's taller towers and writing sad poetry on its walls.

V then frowned.

Sure, V was wary about approaching the broodiest knight since Sir Broody McBrooderson (not the best joke ever, V was willing to admit) but V didn't think a 'wary sigh' had been intentional. V stopped and thought about it.

Wearily.

V had meant to sigh _wearily_.

Oh well.

A plot hole popped up just outside of the window and spat some poor author way down several storeys onto a conveniently placed pile of hey, which loudly bellowed greetings at the poor sod, who had survived the fall (V checked, it seemed like the right thing to do).

"Lance…"

He grunted in response.

"How are you?"

"Miserable."

"Oh. Okay."

"Depressed."

"Mm…"

"Desolate."

"Ah… That's nice…"

"Gloomy. Melancholy. Crestfallen. Tormented. Wretched. Woebegone. Unhappy!" He stopped to continue flipping through his thesaurus for some more appropriate synonyms.

"Distres-"

"Would you like a hug?"

Lancelot blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You sound kind of down."

"Really? How did you pick up on that?"

V scowled at his sarcasm, and it backed off into the darker recesses of his brain to go and have a bitter little chat with his irony. "I was only trying to be nice. And your life isn't _so_ bad, anyway. At least you have nice hair."

Lancelot ran a hand through said nice hair and pulled his most angst-ridden face. It was only then that V saw he had rimmed his eyes with thick, panda-like eyeliner.

"What have you done to yourself? You don't look like a knight… you look like a member of Green Day!"

"Green… Day…" Lancelot repeated slowly. "What is this 'Green Day'?"

"Oh, you know, they're a band? They're popular. How can you have not heard of them?" V facepalmed. "Duh! You're a knight of the round table! Well… They don't always sing the happiest songs… Errm, like, their most famous one goes like this: _hmm hmm hmm hmm_." V hummed.

Lancelot looked at V strangely. "Are there words to go with that?"

"Um, yep: my shadow's the only one to walk beside me. My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating. Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me. 'Til then I walk alone... Cheery, right? I'm not singing you anymore."

Lancelot looked thoughtful. "I must learn more about these Green Day people. I think we have a similar view of life. I too, walk alone, since the loss of my beloved… No! I will not speak her name!"

V looked at Lancelot pityingly. "Gwen?" she asked.

Lancelot scoffed and looked out of the window with longing. "Not if you paid me. The only thing I have ever truly loved in this world is my beautiful banjo, and it has been cruelly stolen away from me!"

"So… If I get your banjo back for you, you'll cheer up?"

"A broken heart can never truly be healed, your Green Day have taught me this. I will forever walk alone. But perhaps, if I had my banjo back, my heart might begin to mend at least a little…" his brown eyes welled up at the thought of its stringy beauty. "Don't taunt me you temptress! It can never be! It can never be…"

With that revelation, Lancelot and his squeaky trousers shuffled off.

**.**

Meanwhile Gaius' Gang found themselves midway through mucking out Prince Arthur's stables.

M. Diane frowned and straightened up, throwing her pitchfork in Ringo'simaginarycat's face. "Just what's going on in here?" she demanded.

The others shrugged and followed suit, all lobbing their mucking equipment at poor old Ringo's.

"Oi! What was that for?"

"You look funny," Elyan suggested, grinning. "You're roughly the height of a ballerina and the weight of a squash. And don't get me started on your face…"

"Okay, I won't get you started."

Elyan stuck his tongue out at Ringo's in a most un-knightly fashion, and Ringo's responded by prodding him in the rear end with a pitchfork.

"Cut it out!" M. Diane insisted, looking more than a little menacing. "Now… Does anyone remember how we got here or what it is we're doing here?"

They all shook their heads.

"Any suggestions?" she asked.

Elizakiwi scratched her head. "Collective amnesia?"

"I don't think so…" M. Diane replied. "At least, I don't remember…"

"Well you wouldn't would you?" teased Nicicia. "That's why it's called 'amnesia'."

"There's something in my pocket…" Ringo's felt it necessary to inform everyone. "It looks like a list."

"What sort of list?"

"Who said that?"

"Never mind, just answer the question."

Ringo'simaginarycat scrutinised the crumpled piece of paper with a frown. "It's a list of… of… of chores. It's Merlin's chores. We're doing Merlin's chores."

"Where's Merlin?" wondered Elizakiwi.

"Nobody knows…" Nicicia declared, in a rather mysterious voice, after no one else answered the question. "This is all evidence in favour of the amnesia theory."

"Um, guys…" Elyan mumbled, sounding disconcerted. "Just what are we mucking?"

They all looked down to their feet, expecting to see a pile of yellow, straw-like substance. Instead, they saw a pile of hey. The hey looked up at them just as they looked down at the hey.

"Hey!" the hey greeted them enthusiastically. "Good morning! Buenos Dias! Salut! Hiya! Sup! Howdy! Hullo! Hello! Salve! Bonjour! How does it? Shalom!"

M. Diane listened to the reverberating greetings in horror.

"RUN!"

As the gang high-tailed it out of the barn in a jumbled mess of frantic limbs, they were not expecting to see a person fall out the sky and land in another pile of the horrible, over-friendly hey that was practically falling over itself to shake their hands.

"Hi!" it screamed at the new arrival, nearly scaring the poor author out of their mind. "Good day!"

"Help me…" Autumne255 mumbled, as she almost drowned in hellos.

"Are you alright?" Elyan asked her, once she was pulled to her feet and dragged a safe distance away from the hey.

"I guess so… At least now I know how it feels to be a telephone. I'm Autumne255!"

Elyan smiled in a friendly way, but he couldn't quite bring himself to say 'hi'.

Elizakiwi shuddered at the hey from a distance. "What is that?"

M. Diane pulled a thinking-face. "Hey?"

The others winced at hearing the word, but she continued nonetheless.

"Hay. It's a homophone. Nasty things. Veggies warned us about them."

As M. Diane pointed out flaws in the author's (admittedly highly questionable) spelling, a large black hole appeared in the ground by the hey, and Loopstagirl was flushed up and out, looking distinctly surprised to see Camelot in such disarray.

Autumne255 scowled. "How come she gets to just pop up and I have to drop out of the sky and land on a pile of that stuff?"

Nicicia shrugged. "It's character building."

Loopstagirl frowned and pointed off into the distance. "Why is the sky on fire?"

No one even bothered to look where she was pointing. "Those are just the firewalls," Elizakiwi replied, as if it was perfectly normal for Camelot to be surrounded by a burning dome.

"Although… Now you mention it…" Ringo's mused, looking mildly interested in the flames that had begun to scorch some of Camelot's red flags, so it appeared the Pendragon dragons really were breathing fire, "perhaps we ought to go and check they're still properly in place…"

Before Ringo's could finish speaking a flurry of canned goods came flying through the air and conked a passing guard hard on the head.

"Youch!"

Elizakiwi put out a foot to stop one of the offending cans rolling off down the street. "It's Spam," she told them seriously. "It's broken through the firewalls."

"Sunglasses on, guys," murmured Nicicia, and they all reached for their shades from their pockets before jogging in the direction of the blazing sky and the flying cans of Spam.

"Guten Morgen!" the hey bellowed after them as they went on their way.

**.**

"It's strange, Merlin."

"What's strange, Arthur?" inquired Merlin happily as he began to steer the little boat to shore.

"It's just… I didn't know you knew your way around the Isle of the Blessed so well… It's not as if we come here very often."

Merlin looked shiftily at his shoes. "Err, yeah. Right."

"It's very nice here, if a bit gloomy. But it all looks the same! With all this fog around, I'm _amazed_ someone like you, with no training whatsoever, could find your way back."

"Well maybe you just need to have a little bit more faith in me, Arthur."

"Hmm…" Arthur considered this as he peered into the water. "Why do you think we decided to get married _here_, of all places?"

"I don't know," Merlin fiddled uncomfortably with the hem of his shirt. "It's not like I like magic, or anything."

"I've never fancied an outdoor wedding myself." Arthur leaned back in the boat and folded his arms behind his head as Merlin did all the hard work, in spite of being 'pregnant'. "I've always wanted to get married in a church… That's my dream wedding: Guinevere, in white, walking down the isle towards me."

All of a sudden, Merlin dropped the oars into the water in a strop and pouted. "Is that how it is, then?"

"How what is?"

"You want to marry _Gwen_?"

"Did I say that?"

"Yes! Yes you did!"

"Oh. Sorry! Force of habit." Arthur smiled sheepishly.

Merlin crossed his arms over his bump and sulked, until something occurred to him. "Wait… Did you say walking down the _isle_, Arthur?"

"Yeah, so?"

"I think I know what we're doing here."

"What?"

"You spell 'isle' with an a, you prat."

"You're calling me a prat? I'm not the one who just dropped the oars over the side of the boat!"

"Ah…" Merlin considered this dilemma for half a second, before grinning wickedly. "Hey Arthur?"

Arthur turned to look at him, and was immediately knocked unconscious by a blinding flash of light before Merlin cackled and set about magicking them back to shore.

**.**

"Sisters, sisters…"

Morgause ground her teeth together.

"There were never such devoted sisters! Never had to have a chaperone, no sir; I'm there to keep my eye on her…"

Morgana rolled her eyes.

"Caring, sharing, every little thing that we are wearing! When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome, she wore the dress, and I stayed home! All kinds of weather, we stick together; the same in the rain and sun. Two different faces, but in tight places, we think and we act as one."

"Shut up!" screamed Morgause, turning around to wave her sword threateningly at the Terrences. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! No more singing! I can't take it!"

The Terrences fell back into formation, ceased their a cappella-ing and hung their heads sorrowfully.

Everybody continued to trudge in absolute silence for a good five minutes, until something strange happened.

Now, you and I would know that the strange humming, buzzing and hopping up and down that the trudgers experienced then was the beginning of series four, but that is because you and I have the benefit of Gaius, who is a wealth of this sort of information. These people do not have Gaius to explain these kinds of things to them, and therefore were left utterly befuddled as to what had just occurred.

"Maybe it was an earthquake?" suggested a Terrence.

"But the only recorded earthquakes in this period…"

"Oh no! Don't start that again," implored Slartibartfast.

"Yes!" Morgause harped, turning around in her saddle and glaring at them. "_Don't_ start that again!"

Funnily enough, they didn't.

And then a large cannon pinged out of nowhere, mouth-to-mouth with Morgause. She barely had a chance to enquire just what exactly it thought it was playing at before it blasted its cannonball straight into her face to correct the irregularity her existence was causing the story, and blipped away.

Fortunately for Morgause, at some point during this exchange, Mordred's fish, who, obviously, had supernatural powers (as all creatures made of magic do) and who had apparently retained some sort of affection for the woman who brought him into existence, levitated her roughly three feet into the air.

"Good fishy," Mordred observed, as Morgause landed comfortably back on her saddle and there was nary a cannon in sight.

"Um…" stammered the evil witch who struck terror into the heart of many a grown man.

As everybody slowly recovered from this and got going again, XxMileena-chanxX tried to get Kizzia's attention over the top of jaqtkd's head, which was rather difficult since they were all tied together and currently being dragged along the floor, with Jaq smack in the middle. But it was important, the most urgent matter yet, actually. Kizzia just had to know! Just a few minutes previously, as Morgause had been blasted into the sky, Mileena had seen, with her own eyes, the letter that Jaq had written, giving away all their battle strategies, fall out of her pocket and she'd caught it. Jaq had even signed her name and everything! Could there be a more incriminating piece of evidence?

'_She's a traitor!'_ Mileena mouthed, pointing at Jaq with her eyes.

'_What?'_ responded Kizzia, frowning.

'_She's. a. TRAITOR,'_ Mileena repeated, incredibly slowly.

'_No she's not.'_

'_Yes she is!'_

'_No she's not.'_

'_Yes she is!'_

"No she's not!" Kizzia shook her head furiously and realised too late that she'd spoken out loud.

"No who's not?" inquired Morgause, turning around in her saddle.

"Err…" Kizzia thought on her feet, or rather, on her knees, as she was at that particular moment in time. "Morgana is _not_ prettier than Morgause."

"Too right," Morgause nodded, smirking a little.

"Not it's not!" Morgana protested, reaching for her handkerchief and preparing to sniffle if she didn't get her way.

"Yes it is," Morgause insisted.

"Not it's not!"

"Yes it is. Enough of this."

Morgana scowled, but seemingly allowed her sister to win the argument, letting a few minutes pass before whispering under her breath, "No it's not."

'_It's all part of the plan,' _Kizzia mouthed reassuringly, but Mileena didn't look too reassured, and continued to shoot Jaq suspicious glares. _'I can't tell you much, but Vegetables knows.'_

Mordred, who happened to be an expert lip-reader, observed the exchange with interest. Just before he turned to rat them out to whichever of the witches he wanted to throw rocks at the least today, he turned to look at Scales, who was swimming round in circles happily in his bowl.

Mordred frowned.

_Would Scales tell on the strange girls?_

_No. _

_Scales was a good fishy._

And just like that, the last humane piece of Mordred's soul blossomed just a little as he smiled a glowing, loving smile down upon his beloved little fish.

"I love you, Scales," he mumbled, like it was a special secret he was telling his bestest-ever friend.

"We say sisters are doing it for themselves! Standing on their own two feet and ringing on their own bells!"

Morgause hit herself on the forehead and Morgana groaned, as the Terrences launched merrily into another 'marching song'…

**.**

magnusrae was the only person in the whole of Camelot, who, upon the author uploading not the next, but the next next, chapter, found herself in exactly the same place she had been the last time she looked: the dungeon.

That was most probably her own fault, she reasoned, since everybody else had escaped or something of the sort, and she'd decided she'd rather have a nap. Then again, it was sensible logic, since, given the number of random attacks on Camelot by scary-looking monsters, she was almost definitely much safer locked up in the dungeons than she was anywhere else.

She turned to look at the guard outside her cell, who had obviously been drugged a few hours previously, for there was a pitcher of funny-smelling wine at his feet, the key was missing from around his belt, and he was down for the count.

magnusrae poked him in the side and he jerked upright, mumbling something about Land Reform.

"Sleeping on the job?" she inquired, shaking her head disapprovingly.

"Says you! You've been asleep for nearly… Oh I don't know how long! That's a bit hippocritical of you!"

At that very moment, a rotund, sneering hippopotamus with small, flappy ears, a sharp pair of spectacles and a clipboard appeared in a puff of smoke. It looked down its snout at them, shook its head disparagingly and took some notes, before sighing, muttering about _'the state of things these days!'_ and waddling off.

magnusrae scratched the end of her earlobe. "I don't think that hippo liked you very much."

"Me?"

"Yeah. And, wow! This author reely can't spell, can she?" magnusrae asked, trying not to choke on the reel of film currently spewing out of her mouth.

The guard frowned at her, and then at the funny-looking hole gargling its way into existence just next to him, and then at magnusrae again, and then at the hole, almost as if he couldn't make up his mind which to frown at, and so was splitting the power of his frown equally between both.

magnusrae raised an eyebrow at him, and this confirmed to the guard that she was indeed responsible for the presence of the strange, whirling thing that had just spat a person into their midst.

"Um… Should I come back at a more convenient time?" wondered MiscPurpleEccentric94 out loud.

magnusrae waved a nonchalant hand. "Suit yourself."

MiscPurpleEccentric94 recognised the girl locked up in Camelot's dungeons as one of her own and frowned. "Are you in trouble?"

"Define 'trouble'."

MiscPurpleEccentric94 scowled, decided her new companion was clearly not going to give her a straight answer, and turned to the guard.

"Will you let her go?"

"Only if Uther says so."

"Right." With that, she did all she could under the circumstances: she whacked him over the head with the empty pitcher of wine, knocking him unconscious, and unlocked the door with the key that was lying on the floor, waiting for them.

"That was much too easy…" she observed, as magnusrae sloped to her feet and trudged out of the dungeons. "It's almost as if someone wanted you to escape."

"Someone probably did. I wouldn't question it if I were you; we've got more important things to worry about. I'm magnusrae," she stuck her hand out.

"I'll call you Maggie."

Maggie pulled a face.

"It's shorter. I'm MiscPurpleEccentric94." They shook hands.

"I'll call you Purple."

Purple pulled a face.

"It's shorter."

Purple looked down at the unconscious guard and felt slightly guilty. "Do you think he'll be okay? I know he's just an OC…"

"It's alright," magnusrae (because she _refused_ to be called Maggie) reassured her. "He's a guard; they have notoriously thick skulls."

Before the pleasantries could continue they heard a deafening screech from higher up the castle, and scurried off to investigate.

**.**

"I'm one unhappy lad

I've never been less glad

They all think I'm mad

Or that it's a fad

I feel like such a cad

I do things that are bad

I wish my name was Chad

Or that I could wear plaid

For then I'd be less sad."

Gwaine twirled on his anachronistic barstool and flipped through the remaining pages of the sparkly notebook to find a blank one, as Laughy-Taffy the Grape digested what she'd just heard.

"I don't think that counts as a poem," she decided eventually. "He needs help."

"I found a blank page!" Gwaine exclaimed delightedly, clicking his biro and beginning his list.

"Did you ask Lancelot if you could borrow his notebook?" asked Taffy.

"Sweetheart, I didn't borrow it, I stole it. It wouldn't be stealing if I asked, now, would it? Are you planning on helping me with this or not?"

"I suppose so… Have you tried flowers?"

"She said they were ugly."

"Chocolates?"

"What's chocolate?"

"Never mind."

Gwaine banged his pen against the table in frustration. "I just don't understand this at all! It's never been this hard for me to get a woman, ever! All I usually have to do is flip my hair and they fall at my feet!"

"Well then maybe this will be good for you."

Gwaine didn't seem to think so.

Laughy-Taffy the Grape looked around herself at the so-called 'Tavern', with its strobe lighting and cocktail bar. "This place doesn't look much like a medieval tavern."

"Gaius hooked us up!" the bartender enthused, high-fiving the DJ. "Isn't it epic?"

"How did you even get all this stuff in here? This place is tiny!"

"_The Rising Sun_ cannot reveal its secrets to its clientele, _The Rising Sun_ apologises for any inconvenience or distress this may cause but cannot be held accountable."

"Oh! It's hopeless!" Gwaine let his head hit the table. "Vegetables will never love me! I'm going to die alone! Awesome, but alone!"

"There, there," Laughy-Taffy patted his shoulder consolingly. "It's not _that_ bad."

"I don't want to be all by myself anymore!" wailed Gwaine, as Taffy began to hum the song inadvertently.

"Wait, that's it!"

"That's what?" he sniffled.

"You should serenade Vegetables! How could she possibly resist you?"

**.**

"What is _that_?" wondered Unformal Sorrelle, not looking the least bit impressed and nudging the box with her foot.

"It looks like a present," Storylover456 observed, picking it up and cradling it. "It's wrapped."

"You could wrap a bomb!" Sorrelle insisted.

"Why would the author want to blow us up?" Storylover reasoned.

"I don't know. Why would she want to trap us in this ridiculous story where Merlin and Arthur are getting married and Gay Pride parades are held on the streets of Camelot and House is the Court Physician…?"

"Alright, alright… Look, there's a note. That probably explains what it is." She began to read the note aloud. "_dear Storylover456 heres yourepresent! I hop you like it becauyse i think its very good"_

Storylover456 had the decency to look at least a little ashamed of herself.

"Why is she sending you presents?" Sorrelle demanded. "Are you friends?"

"No! No. It's not like that!"

"Then what? Tell me you're not reading this awful story?"

Storylover456 blushed.

"WHAT? Why would you read this rubbish?"

"It's funny…" Storylover456 mumbled.

Unformal Sorrelle shook her head in a most disapproving manner. "And you call yourself a story lover…" And then she pulled a frowny face.

Storylover shrugged, and clicked on her apologetic emoticon in return.

Unformal Sorrelle was having none of it and returned a Talk to the Hand face.

This quickly escalated into full-scale, all-out emoticon warfare.

Smileys, Frenchmen, and poked out tongues were being strewn across the halls of Camelot as the two hurled punctuation about erratically.

/:) :( :P B) :x =D O:) ;;) :S :) ;) :O :D :'( :O :$ :* :/ 3 (y) (n) /3 ({}) :| #:-s /:) =)) :~0 :^) :0) : : :{) ]:0)

Eventually, it was Storylover456 who ended the fight with Nathaniel the Narwhal, the most impressive and complex piece of emoticonary that has been seen since the very first smiley face graced our mobile phone screens. It took her a full five minutes to complete the advanced feat of typing, and after having witnessed it, I can only suggest that if you value your life, you never cross Storylover456 in an emoticon battle.

Unformal Sorrelle gulped at the enormous narwhal currently towering over her and bobbing along on its own little sea.

"You win," she whispered hoarsely.

At that very moment, an easily startled pregnant pause, who was, in fact, supposed to be on bed rest, rounded the corner and bumped straight into the gigantic narwhal, causing it to scream as if its life depended on it.

And shortly after that was when magnusrae and MiscPurpleEccentric94 arrived, to find a giant narwhal named Nathanial made of punctuation, two extremely concerned authors, an as yet unopened present, and a pregnant pause in labour on the floor.

"We need to find the Court Physician!" declared magnusrae.

**.**

"Lancelot? Lance? Here Lanceypants! Where are you?"

V was getting fed up.

It was hard enough trying to give Lancelot pep talks _without_ him skulking off to go sitting and feeling sorry for himself in corners.

"There you are!"

Lancelot didn't seem to hear a thing. He was just staring at the wall opposite him glumly, breathing in and out.

"I hate life," Lancelot observed. "I feel like there's nothing for me to live for anyway."

Just then, two things happened roughly simultaneously. One of them was ironic, and one of them was simply good fortune.

The first thing was a giant cannon appearing out of nowhere and preparing to blast Lancelot to kingdom come, and the second thing was Gaius tootling along down the corridor, listening to Abba on his iPod.

"Well you can dance with me honey, if you think it's funny, but does your mother know that you're out?"

Whilst Gaius was hip-thrusting and shimmying along, waggling his finger for all he was worth, he caught sight of Lancelot about to meet his fate and called out to V to "DO SOMETHING, YOU NINNY!"

V, needing no further prompting, pushed Lancelot out of the way, and allowed the cannonball to simply explode through the wall and rattle down onto the streets below, where it squashed the odd superfluous comma or aberrant apostrophe, who had previously been plotting and deciding that they must have decided that the reason they were back in speech was obviously not to make life easier for the author (not at all) but to lull all the characters into a false sense of security and then strike when it was least expected.

Gaius came scurrying over to Lancelot, who was lying slumped on the floor, moaning.

"Is he going to be alright?" asked V.

"I'm afraid not. You see, that was a canon cannon."

"What?"

"I told you all being in an incomplete fanfiction whilst the show was running would be dangerous… Canon cannons operate in stories like ours to correct 'mistakes'; when characters have been killed off on the show, the cannons will try to repeat that in the story, to avoid creating Alternate Universes that confuse readers."

V nodded slowly and Lancelot felt even more sorry for himself than he already had.

"So what you're saying is I'm dead?"

"In a sense, yes. And the cannons will come back for you; they shan't be put off by failing once. You must go undercover, or else you won't just be dead 'in a sense', I'm afraid."

Lancelot pouted, and seemed to retreat into himself. "I didn't think that I could be anymore unhappy than I already was…"

"It's not so bad," said V. "After all, you said yourself that you didn't really have anything to live for anyway."

"Thank you," responded Lancelot. "That makes me feel much better."

"Come on, my boy. I'll teach you everything I know; the cannons will never catch you." Gaius hauled the sullen knight to his feet. "And please don't sulk like that… Here, have my iPod as a consolation present: I'm terribly sorry for your loss."

Lancelot observed the iPod cautiously. "Does it have any Green Day on it?"

"We could download some Green Day for you, my boy, if that would make you happy?"

Lancelot nodded fiercely.

**.**

At the Court Physician's, there was a very long queue.

Immediately in front of the newly-arrived pregnant pause with its four friendly authors in tow, was _eFox_, who had managed to become italicised, and was running into the wall in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to achieve straightness.

It seemed _eFox_ wasn't the only one experiencing issues in this area, as MoonlightSpiritWolf was clutching a deflating pink balloon with the words, _"It's okay to swing that way!"_ written on it (presumably a souvenir from the Gay Pride Parade), but didn't seem to be visiting the doctor because of any personal ailment, rather was there accompanying a friend: another pregnant pause, who had flushed all red and was huffing and puffing and breaking up its silence like ellipsis, needing to be calmed down by its companion.

In front of them was miskris95, whose eyes were full of fluff, for some reason known only to herself, and she was being guided (for her fuzzy eyes had clearly caused temporary blindness) by rowellylovesgryffindor, who didn't appear to be entirely sober.

Just then House stormed out of his surgery, followed closely by Lupa Dracolis and IceCreamDoodle13, both of whom were clamouring for his attention as he rubbed his temples and looked about ready to eat the next baby he came across.

"But… but my tongue feels swollen!" declared IceCreamDoodle13, poking her tongue out and grabbing it with her fingers to demonstrate.

"And I'm faint!" Lupa Dracolis insisted.

"Oh! Oh! Me too!" IceCreamDoodle decided, suddenly looking wobbly on her feet. "I can barely stand up!"

Lupa Dracolis, not one to be outdone, promptly collapsed.

House rolled his eyes.

IceCreamDoodle13 looked beaten for a second, and then she began to wave her hand in front of her face. "Arrgh! I've lost my sight! I'm completely blind!"

"That's highly insensitive!" miskris95 informed a nearby pillar that she mistook for her.

"Well _I_ think I'm going to be sick," mumbled Lupa from the floor.

"And I've lost all the feeling in my legs!" IceCreamDoodle shot back.

"I'm dying!" Lupa declared miserably from the floor. "I must be."

"Will you two please stop fangirling and making up symptoms for five minutes so I can treat some actual sick people?"

"Fine…" IceCreamDoodle13 mumbled, leaning against a pillar sullenly.

"What she said," Lupa Dracolis mumbled from the floor, not looking at all inclined to move or cheer up until House paid her some attention.

"Thank you! Now…" House turned around, and was immediately assaulted by the rather unpleasant sight of miskris95's hairy eyeballs. "Err! On second thoughts…" he glanced back at Lupa wallowing on the floor, who was now looking far more appealing.

"It's not as bad as it looks," miskris95 insisted.

"I don't think you're in a position to comment," House mumbled, wrinkling his nose and poking her face with his walking stick. "When did this happen?"

"Jussss now-ow," slurred rowellylovesgryffindor, looking immensely cheerful about everything. "Oone mmminute wee's commmingg ddowwn ssssstairrss nn thennn sshhhheesss…. pwwoooffhhh!"

House frowned. "And is she always this eloquent?"

"No," miskris95 responded. "She's right, we were walking down the stairs, and I was ranting about how the writers on this show never, _ever_ seem to…"

"Yes, and then what happened?"

"Well, when I got annoyed, my eyes went all weird and fluffy, and then when rowelly tried to drag me to you, she ended up drunk. It was very strange…"

"Hee-hee-hoo!" breathed the two pregnant pauses behind them in unison. "Hee-hee-hoo!"

Taking one more look at the pair of authors who were rapidly losing the ability to stay propped up, House moved towards the more urgent case of the pauses in labour.

"Delivery ward. Now. Not you fangirls."

**.**

Everybody held their breath.

Literally.

One by one, pop… pop… pop… pop… pop… pop…

The pauses squeezed out little pauses into the world.

And everyone sat in the delivery room in complete silence. Not because of the beauty of the moment, or anything, but because the sheer number of pauses in the room took up all the air space and made it literally impossible to speak.

magnusrae drew in a deep breath and pointed to the door, smiled at the pause they'd brought in cradling its tiny piece of peace and quiet in its arms and gestured to the others to back out of the room slowly.

Back in the corridor, rowellylovesgryffindor had passed out, and Lupa Dracolis, _eFox_, IceCreamDoodle13 and miskris95 (whose eyes were still notably fluffy) appeared to have made some sort of breakthrough, given the manner in which they were manically happy-dancing.

"Eyes filled with furry!" IceCreamDoodle13 exclaimed happily to them once she saw them.

"What?" asked MoonlightSpiritWolf.

"The author _meant_ to say that miskris' eyes were filled with _fury_, but instead she said they were filled with _furry_. It's quite funny, really."

miskris95 tried to narrow her eyes, and just ended up looking profoundly stupid.

And then, to the surprise of no one but House, a plot hole churned out Cool Carrot. "Um… Why is House in Camelot?" asked the new arrival, who was most definitely not a carrot.

"And she doesn't even know the past tense of drag!" Lupa Dracolis snorted.

"What?" asked Cool Carrot, clearly confused.

"She meant to say that rowellylovesgryffindor _dragged_ miskris to see House, but instead she said she drug her," Lupa rolled her eyes.

Another plot hole, which House eyed with intense suspicion, bubbled into their midst, and before long Blue Dragon of Rivendell was standing there, looking just as confused as Cool Carrot about everything.

"_So_," _eFox_ began, emphasising every word. "_What were you lot doing while we were figuring all of this out_?"

Storylover456 raised an eyebrow.

"Witnessing the miracle of life," Unformal Sorrelle deadpanned.

"It certainly was miraculous," mused MiscPurpleEccentric94.

Before anyone could offer any comment on this, House pinched himself and squeaked, which, if any of the assembled party were to be asked _their_ opinion on it, was uncalled for. "I can't deal with this…" he murmured to himself. "The format's more than enough on my own show…" he rubbed his nose. "I am a damn great doctor!"

"Donn let Uuuuthherrr heaarr yoouuu saayyiinngg a nauughhttyy wooordd," warned rowellylovesgryffindor, before returning to dribbling on the floor.

"But this…" he gestured around himself as if he'd not heard her, "this is insanity. I don't know how to deal with illnesses caused by magic and… and… spelling mistakes!" House waved his stick up in the air in exasperation, accidentally thwacking MoonlightSpiritWolf over the head, but too engrossed in his rant to take any notice. "There's me thinking this would be a nice break from my usual show… Maybe even my usual character! I might put my feet up, stop limping for a bit, ride a dragon… But no. I like my old show, it's much easier… At least their problems are _medical_!" he turned to scowl horribly at the assembled group, and they tried not to be hurt by the implications of his words.

House clicked his heels together sharply three times.

"There's no place like home…" he whispered. "There's no place like home… there's no place like home."

And with one final scowl he crossed back over to his own category.

**.**

Merlin and Arthur reached the sure.

"I don't know about you, Merlin," said Arthur, who had just regained consciousness. "But I suddenly feel very certain about something."

"_I _feel very certain about _everything_!"

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Yes. I am too. In fact I'm definite. Concrete. I've never been more clear."

"Me neither."

"Where are we, Merlin?"

"I don't know, I know that much. I know I know that, I know."

"I know too, I really know that I know what I know, you know?"

"Yes, yes I do know."

"I don't think we're anywhere, Arthur."

"I don't think, I know."

"Yes, yes me too. I _know_ that we're not anywhere."

"You're right, Merlin, I'm positive. Absolutely spot on. I've never been more decided about anything before ever."

"We're not in a place. It doesn't look like a place."

"I don't need to see how it looks, I'm certain we're not in a place."

"Arthur, we're in a state of mind."

"Yes, yes we are."

They both thought about how sure they were about this for a minute or two, and it pleased them.

"Merlin?"

"Yes?"

"How are we going to get out of it?"

"I'm not sure."

**.**

"My love!"

"..."

"I've been looking for you everywhere!"

Vegetables coughed up another awkward chain of ellipsis in response, and they scowled at the humans as they tumbled away.

"If music be the food of love, err, then I've got Lancelot's banjo and I've written you a song!"

"Look, Gwaine, I'm a little busy…"

"Oh Vegetables!" he began to strum. "I love you, yes it's true! I love you more than Percival loves his teddy bear! I love you more than I love my hair! And I love my hair an awful lot! You can ask anyone in Camelot. I love you more than Arthur loves himself. So please don't leave me on the shelf! Gaius has his potions and Merlin has his magic, although we're all still pretending we don't know: that's tragic…"

An ominous slow clap sounded from the alcove behind them, and Lancelot, who had apparently been slouched there the entire time in a dark leather trench coat and bad-guy sunglasses snuck forwards. "How touching."

Vegetables took a step backwards and Gwaine gulped.

"So," Lancelot began, sticking to the shadows in a threatening manner and folding his arms. "I see you've found someone else."

Gwaine's collar suddenly seemed rather restrictive. "Err… Yeah… About that…"

"Not you, you buffoon!" he turned to gaze affectionately at his banjo. "Why are you with him? He's just playing you, you know? You should be with me! We could be the greatest ship this, or any, fandom has ever known: Lanjo! Just come back to me, I'll take you back, I swear. We can forget about all this! It'll be just like it was: just you and me."

Vegetables coughed. "Is anyone else finding this really weird?" she remarked, before snatching the banjo away from the two men. "I think your emotional attachment to this thing is probably a _little_ too strong, Lancelot."

"DON'T HURT HER!" he screamed.

At that very moment, King Uther was trundling along merrily down the corridor, only to meet with this particular motley crew.

"DAMSEL IN DISTRESS! DAMSEL IN DISTRESS!"

"Lancelot, mate, you need to calm down," Gwaine insisted.

Unintentionally, Vegetables' hand grazed the strings of the banjo, and at that second Uther just happened to be standing right by her. It also just so happened that the string snapped and smacked Camelot's favourite crazy monarch in the face.

"Argh! What sorcery is this?"

"It's not sorcery, Uther, it's music!"

"It is a dangerous weapon!"

"NO! NO! PLEASE DON'T HURT HER!"

"You see? Clearly it has bewitched this poor fool's mind! Guards!" he made sure to yell this nice and loudly so they could come running from however far away they were. "Arrest this… this…"

"BANJO! NOOOOOOOO! I LOVE YOU!"

"_Banjo_ and lock it away in the vaults. It is too dangerous to ever be released. Oh, and make sure to give Arthur the key when you're done. He seems to have a reliable track record with these things.

"I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU!"

The banjo was dragged away down the corridor, and it didn't kick or scream, but, if you looked closely, you might have seen it give a wistful glance back in the direction of the knight who had collapsed to the floor in floods of tears, and wasn't looking back.

"Right!" Uther rubbed his hands gleefully as Lancelot's sobs softened. "I see my work here is done."

"No offence, Uther, but I thought you'd gone crazy?"

"Psh. No, not at all. That's just for the cameras. There aren't any here, are there?" he looked around suspiciously at the empty hallway. "Make sure you get my good side!" he commanded, before flouncing off.

Lancelot had plugged in his iPod by now, and was watching a movie he'd downloaded off Gaius' laptop.

"My life is like the plot of _A Knight's Tale_ only without the happy ending."

"Plus there's no way you're as handsome as Heath Ledger," Vegetables added, before she could stop herself.

Lancelot stared morosely up at them, before stalking to his feet and disappearing into darkness like a depressed ninja.

**.**

This time, Merlin and Arthur reached the _shore_.

A little old man was there to take the boat and generally look creepy.

"Emrys," he said, acknowledging Merlin with a nod of the head. Arthur seemed confused by this.

Merlin grabbed Arthur's hand and ran off as fast as he could, then quickly dropped Arthur's hand and wiped his on his trousers once he realised what he'd done.

"Merlin?"

"Yes?"

"Did he just call you _Emrys_?"

"Err… No."

"I'm sure he did."

"I don't think so, Arthur. I think he was talking to you."

"Was he?"

"Yep. I'm sure. Why did he call you _Emrys_, Arthur, hmm? Have you got some big secret that you're keeping from me?"

"What? No! That's preposterous!"

"Well, why did he call you _Emrys_? Is there something I should know?"

"Merlin, I don't even know that man."

"I don't see how I should know that."

"He probably just mistook me for someone else."

"Hmm… I guess so. I can't think of any other possible explanation."

"Merlin?"

"Yes?"

"What are we going to do when we get back to Camelot?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well… How are we going to explain all of this to people?"

"Oh… I don't know, Arthur. You are going to be king. I can't figure _everything_ out for you."

**.**

In the Dragon's cave Arrow'Nash had unwisely brought her new plotbunny, Hagguhdon for short, along to her sewing session with Gwen, and Kilgarrah was eyeing it up hungrily.

Paralelsky, the only one to notice this so far, rolled her eyes when she heard his stomach rumbling.

"Have a Pringle," she suggested, offering one to him from the cupboard behind her that very few people know about (so don't go blabbing, alright?).

As she went to put the Pringles back in the cupboard, she noticed something else sitting in there. It was a birthday cake.

"Kilgarrah? Is that a birthday cake?"

"What it is, is not what it appears to be. You would do well to remember this."

Paralelsky removed the cake from the cupboard. "Phwoar! And judging by the smell it's been in there for _ages_!"

Kilgarrah sniffed snootily, turning his snout away from her. "Yes, well… There simply hasn't been occasion to use it."

"It says _Happy Birthday to The One and Only Dragon_ on it."

"Yes."

"So… There must be plenty of occasions to use it! You're the only dragon…"

"Don't rub it in."

"… and you have a birthday every year! You're not worried about lighting the candles, are you?" she asked, poking her tongue out.

"Most certainly not! I have a very good reason for not consuming the cake."

"Is it because you don't want to eat it on your own? Birthday cakes are always more fun at birthday parties," Arrow'Nash remarked.

"We'll throw you a birthday party, if you like," suggested Gwen. "I'm sure some of Camelot will forgive you for roasting their relatives."

"That's very sweet, my dear, but I'm not lonely."

"I'd be lonely if I were you," mumbled Arrow'Nash. "Locked up in a cave on my own, with hardly anyone to talk to… It's very sad."

The Great Dragon began to well up. "I don't want to talk about it!"

"So… What's the reason for skipping your birthday every year, if it's not crippling depression?" pondered Paralelsky.

"It happens to be the case that I don't know when my birthday is."

"That's awful!" Arrow'Nash began to sniffle.

"Why don't you ask your mum?" suggested Gwen, before realising what she'd said, and cringing. Fortunately, it seemed he hadn't noticed the slip-up.

"Actually, it's more complicated than that: I _do_ know when my birthday is, but I don't know whether it's my birthday or not. None of us are quite sure what the date is, you see. I've been arguing rather ferociously about it with Geoffrey of Monmouth for quite some time. Incidentally, he claims I have no business existing, the toad."

"How does this affect the date, exactly?" Paralelsky seemed determined to know.

"Oh! I think I know this!" Gwen looked pleased with herself. "Lancelot was talking about it just the other day, and I wasn't listening to much of what he said… But I did hear him harping on about being from the early 12th century… Does that mean that's where we all are?"

"Psh," KIlgarrah waved a flippant paw. "Nonsense. Lancelot's just a figment of a Frenchman's imagination. At least Geoffrey of Monmouth is a real person. A real irritating person. Have you read his diary, Gwen? He writes about you in there, you know, and it's not pleasant."

Gwen began to sob.

"You see, the thing is, Geoffrey's from the _early_ 12th century, whereas Lancelot's from _late _12th, so he doesn't think very highly of Lancelot's nonsense. And then, I heard the other day through the grapevine, from a most interesting fellow by the name of Terrence, that the _real_ Arthur lived in the 6th Century. So I don't even know if it's the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages, to be quite frank. And everything the costume department seems to give us is from totally different eras; it's all an utter disaster. I don't suppose I shall ever get to have a birthday, which is a shame, because I've always rather enjoyed wearing those party hats."

As Kilgarrah concluded his speech, the plot-character continuum made a noise that sounded as if it was suffering from indigestion, and then spawned a spin-off plot hole that produced SilverHeart09, who seemed abnormally pleased at the sight of a dragon, an orange rabbit and a crying servant girl.

"Cake!" squealed SilverHeart09 delightedly.

**.**

"Doo doo doo doo!"

"What was that supposed to be?"

"Well obviously it was supposed to be a trumpet, wasn't it?"

"You what?"

"It was supposed to be the fanfare signalling the glorious return of the prince."

"It didn't sound very glorious."

"Hmph."

"Why don't you try blowing the actual trumpet?"

"Oh, yeah… I'll do that."

"Do."

"Doo doo doo doo!"

"There you go."

"Was that better?"

"Much."

"_Announcing the arrival of Mr and Mrs Pendragon!"_

The courtiers watched the two men in fascination. The odd snippets of chatter, such as, "which one's the Mrs?" (which hadn't actually been agreed upon by the men in question yet) floated around.

Arthur strolled up to his father's throne, only to find someone who was decidedly not his father sitting in it.

"Who are you?"

"I'm your dear old Uncle Agravaine, of course! The one who has conveniently never been either seen or mentioned until this point."

"Oh!" Arthur slapped his forehead as if he'd done something daft like forgetting to buy milk. "Of course! Uncle Agravaine! Nice to see you!"

"To see you nice!" Merlin chuckled, even though no one got the reference.

"Right, Merlin, since Dad's not here, I'll go and tell him, and you go to Gaius, alright?"

**.**

"This is unacceptable, Arthur!"

"Father, I hardly think…"

"Do you want to marry the servant girl? I'll let you marry the servant girl, I take back all that stuff about banishing her, I cross my heart."

"What heart?" grumbled Arthur under his breath.

"Your marriage is not valid!"

"What do you mean it's not valid?"

"A marriage that took place in the gap between two chapters? Anything could have happened! How should we know you even _got_ married?"

Arthur wanted to respond, but, to be honest; he was only guessing that was what they'd done. How was he going to explain this to his husband? And did he even really want a husband? All really wanted was to go to sleep and see if he could manage to make it through a night without some fangirl stealing his shirt…

**.**

Gaius, who had been reinstated as Court Physician, was sitting at his desk, flicking through videos on YouTube.

"Gaius!" Merlin screamed, barrelling into the physician's chambers with quite the look on his face. "Gaius I have something really important to tell you!"

"Merlin! Now you just wait a minute. Can't you see I'm busy? Some idiot just misspelt something on a YouTube video comment board, so of course I have to sign in to my account and point their idiocy out to them."

Merlin shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot whilst Gaius did this.

"There. I'm done. What did you have to say?"

"I'm married!"

"Excuse me?"

"I'm married to Arthur! We got married on an island and it was very romantic and then I had to knock him unconscious as usual, but now our baby's going to be born into a proper family! Isn't it wonderful?"

"Merlin! For heaven's sake, pull yourself together! You must try and remember that you are not really pregnant!"

Merlin gasped and looked seriously offended.

"Come on, now, Merlin, you were there when we did the test. You know that this pregnancy is just an illusion."

"Well then it's a very good illusion, because I'm feeling very upset by this right now Gaius! You should know better than to pick on a pregnant man, the hormones make us very vulnerable!"

"You spend half your time in tears anyway, hormones or no. Now this is serious, Merlin. I've been doing some research whilst you've been out honeymooning and we must all get back to our canon characters or face horrible consequences."

"Don't you think that's a little bit hippocritical of you when you're bbming Geoffrey of Monmouth as we speak?"

Gaius shrugged.

At that moment, a sneering hippopotamus with an expression of displeasure, who had been doing a tour of the castle, making people feel bad about themselves, took a moment to pop in on the physician's chambers and tut loudly before trotting off.

"That was weird," declared Merlin, in an unusually deep voice. He clutched at his throat and looked to Gaius for answers.

Gaius was simply chuckling. "I wondered when this would happen."

"What?" asked Merlin, who was now deafeningly macho.

"You're having a delayed reaction to the effects of the new series starting; the destiny of a great kingdom is no longer resting on the shoulders of a young _boy_, but a young _man_. You've finally hit puberty! I'm so proud." Gaius began to blubber.

"Has anything else happened? You know what those writers can be like…"

They rolled their eyes in unison.

But before Gaius could give Merlin a run-down of the chapter's events as they sat round their table and giggled over some funny-coloured soup, in that time-honoured Merlin tradition, episode three hit our Merlin screens, and one King Uther felt the effects.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: I'm really sorry this has taken so long! Speaking of long... err... yeah: it's the longest chapter yet. :S Sorry about that, too. You don't have to read it all in one go! In fact, you don't _have_ to read it at all. I'm really, really going to try to make next chapter short! Okay... Credit: Choralreif thought that Morgana should become a Merthur shipper and _still _not know who Emrys is and also asked for more 'punctuational escapades', bubblepunk12 suggested that Morgause should roll her eyes and they should get 'stuck like that', Arrow'Nash really _does _squee and Blue Dragon of Rivendell wanted to meet Kilgharrah and Gwaine. I think that's everyone! Please tell me if I've missed you out. Any ideas I've not used yet will be used, but I thought the chapter was probably long enough! I hope the 'spoiler system' helps or at least amuses you. :) Also, please check out Lancelot's Love by Unformal Sorrelle, which is a Lanjo fic. I now officially ship Lanjo, and enjoy the idea that the ship will make no sense to anyone who hasn't read this fic, because I like confusing people. Wooh!**

_NEE-NAR… NEE-NAR …NEE-NAR!_

Red and blue flashing lights rudely blinded everyone in Camelot simultaneously, as an intrusive spoiler siren screeched and wailed in the distance.

"IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE RESULT OF SERIES 4, THEN LOOK AWAY NOW!" it ordered, in its nasal, Joe Pasquale-like voice. "WE WILL INFORM YOU OF WHEN THE DANGER HAS PASSED!"

The sound of someone hitting the deck echoed throughout the castle. It did not sound good. With horror-stricken looks on their respective faces, Merlin and Gaius hurrayed towards the source of the crashing sound.

"Hurrah!" bellowed Merlin in his new, masculine voice, jumping to his feet.

"Hazzar!" concurred Gaius heroically.

"Pip pip!" cried Merlin, as they tootled off down the corridor with great speed, having figured out that they'd intended to _hurry_ in the first place.

Once they reached Uther's bedchambers, they were both out of breath, which was due in part to the fact that they'd rushed, but mostly to the fact that they'd spent their journey whooping joyously.

Arthur and Uther barely noticed the two out of breath men explode into the room: they were a little preoccupied. Arthur slammed into his father to knock him out of the way of the mouth of a giant cannon.

As the two men hit the floor, one of them having saved the life of the other, they shared a look.

"Woah!" the royals mumbled dazedly in unison. "Déjà vu."

The canon cannon grumbled as best cannons can, and then trundled off into nowhere, somewhere, or indeed anywhere. You never can tell exactly what it is these fickle plot devices are up to.

"What?" screamed Gaius, in an incredibly un-Gaius-like display of loosed self-control. "They've killed two characters off already?"

"I'm dead?" asked both Uther and Arthur nervously at the same time, looking down at their bodies to check they were still the way they had been a second ago, and hadn't become transparent or begun to decompose or anything ghastly like that. All seemed as it should be.

"This is preposterous!"

"They both look fine to me," asserted Merlin, in his new gruff voice, so gruff that it was gruffer than the Gruffalo, and it startled Arthur.

"Why is he talking that?" demanded the prince.

Gaius, however, was interested in no input of anybody else's. He had already begun to pull at his wisps of hair and strain his face into a distracted grimace.

"Is this like some demented game show where they kill a new one of us off each week? What do we have to do to win? Or just be freed? I'M A CELEBRITY, GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Gaius stopped to look about himself; unsurprisingly, nothing had altered in the least.

He shrugged. "It was worth a shot."

Uther was scratching his scar and frowning. "What's a game show, Gaius?"

"Oh… Nothing. It's just one of those things I like to watch now and then on YouTube. Oh… Wait, that's it. Merlin? Do you remember what I was saying to you about us having to get back to character if we are to survive this series?"

"Yes…"

"Well that is what we must do. And I shall lead by example." Gaius seemed to struggle to speak here. "I… I am going to give up… give up… all… all of… of my… gadgets. The anachronisms are feeding the tear in the plot-character continuum, I'm sure."

The characters in the room were gaping at him in shock. A gadget-less Gaius? Inconceivable.

"Now, you see the sacrifices are going to be demanding. You must all give up that which is not truly a part of you. This shall not be easy but you know where I will be if you need to talk about anything confidentially."

"Yeah," Merlin nodded, in a deeply masculine manner. "Like that pencil you got stuck in your ear at the council meeting, Uther, when you were bored and wiggling it around. Gaius takes confidentiality very seriously. He never tells _anybody_. How'd it manage to get stuck so hard?"

Uther growled.

Gaius seemed unnerved by this. "Merlin… I think we'd better go…" He dragged his sidekick out into the corridor.

_NEE-NAR… NEE-NAR… NEE-NAR!_

"IT'S SAFE TO COME OUT! I REPEAT: THE COAST IS CLEAR!"

Merlin scowled at the little red and blue blur as it whizzed past screeching and souring his mood. "What is that thing?"

"It's a spoiler," Gaius answered. "Well, technically, it's a spoiler _alert_. You've just experienced a spoiler, without even knowing it. As for the alert, it's about time the author put one in!"

"Stupid author," they both muttered under their breath.

"What does it do?" wondered Merlin.

"They warn readers about upcoming spoilers, so they don't inadvertently come across pieces of information that they don't want to come across."

"Like what?"

"Like what's happening in series 4 at the moment. Some people might not want to know that Gwaine is going to be the next knight to find out about your magic."

"He is?" Merlin clapped his hands excitedly. "Oh goody! I do love Gwaine, he's so tolerant. Besides, if he didn't like it, I could just convince him he made the whole thing up when he was drunk!"

"Honestly Merlin, I was only joking. I have no more idea of what's going to happen next than _you_ do. I was simply trying to wind the readers up."

Merlin froze in his progress down the corridor. "The readers?"

"Yes, Merlin."

"There are people reading us, right now?"

"Yes, Merlin."

"Ooh-err," Merlin shivered. "That's creepy. Are they reading us all the time, or only some times?"

"Who knows? They could be reading you at any time of day."

"Even when I'm in bed?"

"Yep."

"Even when I'm just out gathering herbs?"

"Unbelievably, some people might find that fascinating."

"Even when I'm on the toilet?"

"You never know when they're watching you, Merlin."

"I'm scared, Gaius."

"Don't be scared, Merlin. It's just like being stalked all the time by an invisible person who's watching every move you make. Some of them are looking to spot even the tiniest of errors and may brutalise you cruelly for being out of character."

"What if I just don't feel like myself that day?"

"Not taken into consideration, I'm afraid."

"I really don't like the sound of these readers at all."

"It's not the readers you want to worry about, Merlin. It's the writers. They're the ones with the power to make you do or say anything they like."

Just then they reached the door to the physician's chambers, and Gaius stopped before opening the door to do the Macarena.

Merlin watched him cautiously.

"One and a two and a three, Macarena!" Gaius muttered under his breath.

Merlin decided to wait until his father-figure was finished making a prat of himself to ask him just what on earth he was doing. Maybe it was some special druid ritual, or something.

"Did a writer make you do that, Gaius?"

"Hm? Oh. No. I just thought I'd get in one last OOC groove before I have to get back to being the boring old potions master. It's a hard life doing nothing but mixing all day, Merlin. I finally understand why Snape was so endlessly grumpy."

**.**

Paul the OC was awake.

He did not know why he was awake, he did not know how he had come to be awake, and he did not know where Vegetables was.

That was worrying him.

"Vegetables?"

She never let him out of her sight. Or perhaps it was the other way around; he did tend to follow her about like a puppy. But when he'd gone into hibernation he wasn't expecting to wake up without Vegetables being there.

The funny thing was he didn't actually remember waking up. He just remembered going to sleep, and then suddenly he was wandering around the forest on what appeared to be a hunt.

Paul didn't like hunting, he was a vegetarian. That was his sole character feature, and he clung to it with every fibre of his wordage. Vegetables knew that. So why would she send him on a hunt?

It made no sense.

"Vegetables!"

Paul crossed the courtyard and sighed sadly to himself as nobody paid any attention to him. That was one of the essential features of being an OC: you had to blend into the crowd and look exactly like absolutely everybody else on the face of the earth. Even Paul couldn't tell his own reflection apart from another OC's.

It didn't make him sad, particularly. It just made him want to get a snazzy haircut, so he'd look unique. But that wasn't allowed.

**.**

At the meeting of the PAEE (they had abandoned PU at the insistence of the enigmatic exclamation marks, who insisted that it sounded too much like pee-uw! They did not particularly want to be associated with smelling badly. The EE on the end came as a result of the commas, who were good at tacking stuff on to the end of other stuff, and had finally solved the question of what it was that Punctuation was Against: Everything Else) the punctuation were having a rough time of it. They had discovered that they had apparently signed a legally binding treaty agreeing to their use in speech, but that the reason none of them could remember ever having signed it was that this had occurred in the gap between chapters.

The exclamation marks, hasty as they were to draw exciting conclusions, had decided that this was a conspiracy, and that the author had skipped chapters on purpose, just so that she wouldn't have to keep finding creative ways around their protests.

"But we have a right to protest," insisted an apostrophe, looking grudgingly into the air, where it thought the author probably was.

"It's just a plot device," insisted a full stop, pointing at the treaty and decisively cutting through everybody else's arguments with a bluntness only full stops possess. "If it's just a plot device then we didn't _really_ sign it and we don't _really_ have to stick to the terms." It'd said that about eight times already. But full stops are obstinate, and they like to have the last word.

"It's all the author's fault!" screamed an exclamation mark passionately, and everybody agreed with this. "Let's declare war on the author!"

At this there was one massive gulp, presumably from the author in question, that shook the entirety of Camelot and beyond, even leading the author's grandmother (who intuitively knew about these sorts of things) to call her up and ask if she was quite alright.

The gulp fractured the already delicate plot-character continuum, and the seam that held the story together rumbled unsteadily before tearing smack in the middle of the courtyard, where several unsuspecting OCs, who had been happily milling about, met their doom. Amongst them was Paul the OC, who'd just decided to throw caution to the wind and was heading to the barber's to get something funky done with his fringe, when he was deposited into a blank abyss of nothingness, along with seven other people who looked startlingly bland.

The PAEE noticed very little of this, beyond a loud glugging noise that they took to be the war-cry of the author.

An asterisk twitched nervously as it became aware of how small it was in comparison to this almighty, glugging creature. "Perhaps we shouldn't declare war on the author?"

The others seemed to agree with this, except for the exclamation marks, who started sulking.

"Maybe we should rebel against the story more subtly?" suggested a sneaky tilde slyly, with what looked like a wink. "We could follow the terms of the treaty exactly, but still cause mayhem. Let's trap them in their own speech! Then they'll see what a force to be reckoned with punctuation can be!"

In the corner, a percent sign was shaking in its boots. "I'm afraid of another punctuation purge if we rebel…" it muttered.

A quotation mark next to it scoffed. "How can you be shaking in your boots? You don't have feet!"

"Well you don't have a mouth and look who's talking! I suggest you keep your mouth shut!"

"I thought you said I didn't have a mouth…" The quotation mark sneered.

Two colons banged themselves together in an effort to regain order. "Please try to focus on the issue at hand here, punctuation! Now… here's what we're going to do…"

**.**

"Nee-Nar… Nee-Nar… Nee-Nar," the minor spoiler alert paused to clean its glasses and take a puff of its inhaler.

"NOTHING SERIOUS AHEAD, FOLKS! BUT THERE ARE A FEW SLIGHT TIDBITS OF INFORMATION! ANYONE WITH PARTICULARLY WEAK CONSTITUTIONS WOULD BE ADVISED TO GO AND TAKE A TEA BREAK! OTHERWISE YOU ARE FREE TO PROCEED!"

"Those things are really starting to get on my nerves!" yelled the cook, who had been deafened by one screeching in her ear earlier this morning, and who had come to Gaius in the hopes of being cured.

Unfortunately for her, there were an awful lot of people crammed into the physician's chambers at once.

Gaius was absolutely rushed off his feet with typo-related fatalities, and the authors present were taking full advantage of the distraction to pester Agravaine.

"Hey, Agravaine?" Unformal Sorrelle began, truly earning her name with a sporadic display of informality. "What's up with you?"

He frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah," Whirlwind421 joined in, poking his pudding-y face and tugging on his cape to catch his attention. "What _is_ up with you?"

"What are your character motivations?" pestered Sorrelle, examining him critically.

"WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN? You're almost as annoying as people who read and don't review, you evilly evil person!" yelled Whirlwind, rather bluntly.

"Sh! I'm supposed to be a traitor! I can't betray them if they _know_!"

Whirlwind421 and Unformal Sorrelle turned to look at Arthur, who was standing right in front of them in the queue, looking disconcertingly skinny, and as oblivious as he always did to what was really going on around him.

"But _why_?" Sorrelle was adamant. "That's what I want to know! Why are you trying to get your own nephew killed?"

"Is this what Igraine would have wanted?" implored Whirlwind421. "Or Ygraine? I'm not quite sure how you spell it."

"Who cares?" grunted Agravaine. "That spoilt little Daddy's girl always got everything she wanted. Mum and Dad loved her and Tristan more than me! I was the weird child who sat in the corner of the playground talking to his imaginary friend, Sandhurst. I hated my sister and I hate her son. Stupid blondes, they really do have more fun."

Whirlwind421 was uncertain of how to digest this. "Well… That was certainly unexpected."

"So…" Sorrelle got out a notebook and scribbled something down. "This was all just about a sibling rivalry?"

Agravaine shrugged. "That and I want to get into Morgana's knickers."

Both of the authors shuddered at that.

"Bad mental images…" mumbled Whirlwind, looking traumatised.

At the front of the queue Gaius was despairing of Elyan, who appeared to have been greased from head to toe.

The only possible explanation for the bizarre scenario was that he'd been typo'd, but the problem was in discovering _what_ the typo was, and how to best counteract it.

Gaius was doing this by madly scribbling words all over a piece of paper pinned to the wall (where his whiteboard had formerly been, but which he had now had to be taken down, because it was 'anachronistic') and looking frazzled. All of a sudden, he snapped his fingers and yelled, "Barmy!"

Not many people were listening to him.

In fact, given how crowded the room was, not many people could hear him.

"Balmy! He's coated in lip balm! Although… I don't think I should know what lip balm is…"

At this, the ceiling seemed to crack open and a plot hole plopped Nimbus Llelwyn onto the floor. Nimbus appeared somewhat dazed.

"You there!" Gaius pointed at one of the guards of Camelot, who was standing about in a minion-like manner, as if he was simply waiting to be summoned. "Go and give Sir Elyan a bath! Make sure you get him clean all over!"

"But I'm here because I smell terrible…" the guard muttered back awkwardly. "I thought there might be something wrong with me."

"Oh," Gaius waved a hand dismissively. "You're the seventh today. You're just reeking instead of wreaking." Gaius handed him a bar of soap. "The smell will go away if you just wash."

"I didn't think of that."

"Now you two go and have your baths. And be careful carrying him; he's slippery."

As the smelly guard carrying Elyan passed Agravaine, the traitor covered his nose and winced. "Err… You reek!"

"I was supposed to _wreak_," the guard explained.

"Oh," Agravaine considered this and smelled under his own armpit. "That explains my problem."

"Would you like to borrow my soap?"

"Yes, please."

And with that they left, Elyan and the guard to bathe (although probably not together), and Agravaine to go back to _wreaking_ havoc.

Back in the physician's chambers, Gaius had to sit down for a minute, to regain his strength.

"I'm not as young as I used to be," he said, to no one in particular. His bones creaked in agreement. "Who's next?"

"Me!" squeaked Arthur, pushing his way (rather rudely) to the front of the queue. "I'm getting thinner and thinner by the second! Soon I'll look like Merlin!"

Gaius raised an eyebrow in the direction of Merlin (because of course his eyebrows are capable of this sort of unnatural thing), who was currently about the size of a smallish elephant, due to all the testosterone pumping through his veins. After all, the destiny of a great kingdom was now resting on the shoulders of a young _man_.

"Whatever you say, Sire. Have you been eating well recently?"

"I have been trying to give him a little less for breakfast," Merlin admitted. "Just to make sure he doesn't get fat."

"I am not fat!" Arthur insisted, pointing emphatically at his abdomen, which was literally wasting away before their eyes.

"Indeed not," Gaius replied. "Well, if you have been eating well…"

"Like a pig," Merlin interjected, unhelpfully.

"Then I think I know what the problem is," Gaius concluded, pausing to give his assistant a warning look. "Arthur, I am sorry to say this, but I believe you are being drabbled."

"Drabbled?"

"Yes, Arthur. For some diabolical reason of their own, the author is cutting down your word count. To be sure, I will need to see your chest."

Several of the females in the room literally swooned at this prospect, whatever swooning actually is, and a few of the authors rolled their eyes and grumbled.

Arthur did as he was bidden, to reveal multiple scars that were certainly not battle wounds across his chest. In fact, when Gaius looked more closely, they were innumerable deleted words: gaps where words should be, the white on the page where there once was ink.

"It is as I feared," Gaius decided. "You can put your shirt back on now, Arthur."

"Oh, right. I'd forgotten I wasn't wearing one, to be honest."

"You do that at Council Meetings, too…" Merlin complained.

"I thought you liked my chest?" Arthur still hadn't put his shirt on.

"I do, Arthur, really. But you can have too much of a good thing."

"Characters, please!" Gaius implored. "Can we _please_ try to stick to canon?"

Arthur pouted, and put his shirt back on, very slowly. "When will they stop cutting me down? Will they just cut and cut every last sentence?"

"No, Arthur. Please try to refrain from being quite so melodramatic. The author, if my prediction is correct, is merely editing you. You will be edited down to one hundred words: a drabble. I assume, since it is only you who has been affected, that these words will form a description of you, and so you will probably retain your most innate character details. Or, at least, what the author perceives to be your most innate character details."

"What are you going to do about it?" demanded Arthur, as he shrank several inches.

"Errm… I'm not entirely sure. Have this sentence, for now," Gaius handed him a funny-looking blue bottle, "and I'll see what more I can do later. I'm a little busy right now."

"I'm in charge here!" Arthur declared, before drinking from his vile and sauntering off. "Polish my armour, muck out my stables… Merlin, you idiot! Guine_vere_. For the love of Camelot!" Arthur's voice faded away down the corridor.

Merlin gave Gaius a curious glance.

"Oh… I probably should have warned him that he'll become limited to increasingly few stock phrases. I'll tell him that later. Who's next?"

"NEE-NAR… NEE-NAR… NEE-NAR! SERIOUS SPOILER AHEAD! I REPEAT: SERIOUS SPOILER AHEAD! STAY INDOORS! LOCK UP YOUR CHILDREN! COVER YOUR EYES! DO NOT COME OUT UNTIL TOLD IT IS SAFE TO DO SO!"

The cook conked the spoiler alert on the back of the head with her ladle. "You're giving me a bleeding headache," she informed it.

"I'm next," groaned Lancelot, clutching at his stomach and staring wearily through eyes bruised black and blue.

"My word… Who have you been fighting, my boy?" inquired Gaius.

"No one! I'm far too honourable to go around fist-fighting people I don't know."

"Err… Haven't you already done that, Lancelot?" Merlin pointed out. "When you rescued Gwen?"

"I was fighting with a _sword_ then, Merlin, honestly! And I don't want to talk about it."

"So, how have these bruises been attained, Lancey… I mean, Lancelot?" Gaius checked himself.

"I have no idea," Lancelot sulked and reapplied a coat of black nail polish (a nervous habit). "They just keep coming out of nowhere…"

Suddenly Lancelot let out a loud _oomph_ and, to prove his point, dislocated his jaw without touching it.

"ee ha i een?"

"What?" asked Merlin.

"He said: _See what I mean_?" translated Gaius. "I speak fluent injury-related gibberish. You have to, in my line of work. I also think I have your diagnosis. Lancelot, have you been experiencing a deflated sense of self-worth?"

Lancelot nodded his head morosely.

"A bruised ego? Sudden attractiveness to painful objects? Apparent clumsiness?"

Lancelot grunted in agreement, as an entire shelf of potions suddenly shattered down onto his head with no fore-warning and he tripped over his own feet.

"Eech!" wailed Lancelot, upon receiving an inexplicable paper cut (he had not been holding any paper).

A tile from the floor flew up and hit him on the head, before neatly landing back in its place, and a broom contrived to smack him about the shins as the window opened itself and shattered on his arm.

"I've never known inanimate objects to be so violent," observed Merlin casually.

Gaius continued listing symptoms as if nothing was happening. "Cattiness from other characters?"

Lancelot pointed to Sir Percy, who was currently telling all the other knights how glad he was that he no longer had to hang out with Lancelot the party pooper with poor Lancelot standing right next to him.

"Hearing voices in your head telling you to end it all?"

"Yes. What's wrong with me Gaius, and where's the tallest building in Camelot?"

Gaius put a hand up to cover Merlin's mouth. "Don't answer that, Merlin. Lancelot, you're being bashed. By Arweners, would be my guess. Lancelot-bashing is possibly the most vicious Merlin-bashing of all."

Nobody had to tell Lancelot this, as he found himself repeatedly unwillingly punching himself in the face.

"How do I make it stop, Gaius?"

"Oh, that's easy. The Arweners are a sentimental lot. You just have to cry."

"I have to cry?"

"Yes. Then they'll all feel sorry for you."

"I'm sorry Gaius, I can't do that. You should know better than to ask me to do that. You know that I am dead inside. I have no emotions."

An awkward silence followed this.

"Right then. But I should warn you, dead people can't kill themselves. They just make an awful mess."

Lancelot didn't hear this. He was too busy running away screaming from the assorted knives and forks that had begun to fly after him as though he was magnetic.

"NEE-NAR… NEE-NAR… NEE-NAR! THE COAST IS CLEAR! YOU MAY COME OUT NOW!"

The minor spoiler alert trundled along after its superior, who was bellowing out the safety signal, blowing its nose in its embroidered handkerchief and giving the cook evils.

Arrow'Nash squeed. She'd been doing that non-stop for _ages_. "Gaius?" she squeed. "Do you think you could SQUEE help me out? I SQUEE can't SQUEE stop SQUEE squeeing!"

"BOO!"

"All better now," she gulped, and ran off.

A cursor put its hand up and scrolled into Gaius' line of vision. "Excuse me, Gaius, sorry to trouble you…"

"Alice! I've been wondering where you've been! I haven't seen you for chapters! I thought you'd just disappeared again… Or that the author had forgotten about you or something."

"The author might have forgotten about me, Gaius, but I could never forget about you."

"You look… _different_, Alice. I can't quite put my finger on it…"

"I'm a cursor, Gaius," she told him bluntly.

"Ah, yes. I thought you'd done something new with your hair. How exactly did you manage to become a cursor?"

"I haven't the first clue."

Gaius thought about this for a minute, before shooting Alice a fondly disapproving look. "Alice, you weren't trying to curse somebody, were you?"

Alice shifted nervously. "I might have been…"

"Oh, Alice! I thought you said those days of dabbling in dark magic were behind you?"

"Oh they were! But this guy _really_ deserved it!"

"Very well, you know I can't stay mad at you. And I've solved your problem: you're supposed to be a _curser_, not a _cursor_. Stupid author. A few clicks and it ought to wear off. You haven't been like this for long?"

"Not too long…"

"Excellent. Merlin will give you a click or two, and that shall restore you to health."

Merlin winced and mumbled something inaudible.

"Go on, Merlin, go and click on your Aunty Alice."

Merlin did as he was told, but he didn't like it.

Gaius groaned to himself. "That is it. I have had it with typos! I'm never going to get any proper medical work done, and how on earth am I supposed to get back to canon if I can't mix any potions? Not that I really mind it, but still! It's the principle of the thing!"

"I think I can help with that!" announced Kitty O, stepping forward in a most heroic manner.

"You? An author? What do you plan to do?"

"I, and some other loyal authors, shall take the typos off your hands! We spend enough of our time spellchecking as it is; we're pretty good at it. Take that woman over there, who is complaining that her husband has been turned into a handful of gravel, it's obvious that he was supposed to _grovel_."

Like magic (but don't tell Uther) the man was restored to his proper self, and his wife told him to get to his feet and stop behaving like such an idiot, before dragging him home and yelling at him to make something of his life.

"Very well," Gaius consented wearily. "Do whatever you like. Just don't tell Uther."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Force of habit, I suppose."

Kitty O didn't stop to think about this. "All typo-related accidents and injuries, follow me!"

The vast majority of people in the physician's chambers trooped off after her.

Nimbus Llelwyn watched them go, and, with a scratch of the chin, decided to go and be helpful. It would probably be less likely to result in contracting disease than hanging out in the physician's chambers. Probably.

**.**

_HERE BE SPOILERS_

The author walked straight past the sign nailed just outside the entrance to the dragon's cave, but I suggest you don't, if you don't want to be spoiled. If it doesn't bother you, then go right ahead.

"Is there a _Kilgarrah_ here?" asked Cool Carrot, reading from a small square piece of card. "Hm. You know you've spelt _Kilgarrah_ wrong, don't you? It's supposed to have another 'h' in it, after the 'g'."

With that inconsistency suspended in the air, bubblepunk12 emerged with a pop out of nowhere in particular, and was immediately offered a seat, a glass of fizzy mead and a chocolate biscuit.

"Oh," mumbled The Great Dragon, readjusting his party hat with a marked attitude of awkwardness. "Well… I suppose we'll just have to start spelling it properly from now on, and pretend we've always been spelling it that way. Is everybody alright with that?"

"Yes!" chorused said everybody.

"Right. Good," agreed Kilgharrah. "I wonder where my birth certificate is; I thought I left it in the cupboard in the back. I must go and get the tip-ex and correct it…."

"So…?" Cool Carrot shrugged nonchalantly. "Am I in the right place? Is this Kilgharrah's birthday party?"

Kilgharrah bustled back, "You mean the Mad Dragon's Birthday Tea Party? Why, yes it is!"

"Right then…" mumbled Cool Carrot, still taking in the lair, which was crudely decorated with Birthday Banners and the contents of party poppers which had exploded all over everywhere. "Well, Happy Birthday, I suppose."

"Oh, we don't know it's my birthday, not for sure. But we thought it might as well be as not."

Cool Carrot did not understand this, but figured the explanation would probably make even less sense, so wisely did not ask for it.

Kilgharrah, who was an incomparably excellent host, wiped his talons on his Cath Kidston apron and smiled warmly, ironic - and not a little unnerving - considering what his mouth is often used for. One thinks the author might have better sense than to phrase things so thoughtlessly, really. "Sit yourself down and have some nibbles! Why, that reminds me, everybody, change places!" Everybody did so, and found themselves sitting down next someone totally new. Except for Gwaine, who hadn't moved since his twentieth glass of fizzy mead, and was now gradually sliding off his chair. "Well…" Kilgharrah turned back to a very confused Cool Carrot. "There's a seat over there next to the Young Warlock, but I ought to warn you, he's feeling a bit hormonal at the moment, aren't you, Merlin?"

"No I am not!" snapped Merlin, before promptly bursting into tears and snatching an entire dish of Snack-a-jacks out from under Percy's nose. "Besides, it's just the baby," he told Cool Carrot, who sat down next to him cautiously. "I'm not usually like this."

"Oh, come on Merlin!" laughed a rapidly shrinking Arthur, whose nose was only just poking above the table. "You're always crying! You're a big girl's blouse. Feed the horses. It's got nothing to do with our baby."

"Wait, what?" spluttered Cool Carrot. "_Our_ baby? You're having a baby together? No. This isn't happening, is it?"

Arthur frowned, and then decided not to answer the question. "Hey, dragon? What was with all that warlock stuff? Why did you call Merlin a warlock? What's a warlock? Magic is evil! Muck out my stables. "

Kilgharrah shook his scaly noggin. "Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about, your highness."

"Okay. Idiot," said Arthur, before returning to his bowl of chocolate cereal.

"What's wrong with him?" wondered Cool Carrot.

"Oh… Not much out of the ordinary, really," Merlin dabbed his eyes on the hankie he'd borrowed from Kilgharrah and smiled fondly at his 'husband'. "Gaius says he's being drabbled."

"Happy birthday to me!" declared Kilgharrah, slicing open the rather old and potent-smelling birthday cake that had been in his lair for as long as he could remember. He then began passing pieces around, before settling down and examining the author on his left, who had introduced themselves earlier on as Blue Dragon of Rivendell.

"So…" murmured Kilgharrah, glancing casually over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses as he swilled a little wine (chardonnay, if you care to know) around in his glass. "You say you're a dragon?" he examined the author critically, but saw no signs of scales or a tail.

"Yes…" Blue Dragon of Rivendell murmured, twitching nervously under Kilgharrah's stare, before turning to slap away Gwaine's hand, as he tried to swap their drinks.

"Hmph," was Kilgharrah's retort. "Looks like they're letting anybody in these days."

Just then, absolutely out of the blue, a small baby dragon by the name of Aithusa dropped into Kilgharrah's lap.

"Never mind," sighed The Great Dragon, now relegated to the role of _The Greater Dragon_. "There seem to be loads of us now."

"Oi!" slurred Gwaine, leaning across the table to address Kilgharrah. "Am I drunk, or did that dragon just land in your lap?"

"Yes, the dragon did just land in my lap," answered Kilgharrah wearily.

"But you are drunk," Blue Dragon of Rivendell scolded him, removing someone else's drink from his clutches.

Gwaine frowned at the empty space in his hands where Sir Percy's drink had been. "Well then where did the dragon come from?"

"Series 4," Kilgharragh responded.

"Ooh!" a squeal suddenly shot across the room and attracted everybody's attention. "You're so cute!" gurgled Arrow'Nash, gawping down at the now absolutely teeny-tiny Arthur.

"Polish my armour!" squeaked Arthur, which didn't seem even remotely relevant.

"Aw!" was all Arrow'Nash said, before hugging him. Arthur did not appear to appreciate it very much.

"So…" MerlinJustGiveMeTheMuffins coughed. "What were you saying?"

"Oh," Magnusrae took a sip of tea and continued in a very civilised manner. "Well, I was just saying that I finally caved to the pressure and capitalised my M."

"Oh? Really? Let's see?"

Magnusrae showed her.

"Oh! Of course. I thought there was something different about you. I remember when I had my Ms capitalised; I was nervous at first, but it doesn't hurt at all. I had all three done at once."

"Wow. But I know what you mean, once you get over that initial fear, it's really easy. Just shift key m."

"Yeah. Exactly," MerlinJustGiveMeTheMuffins nodded. "I haven't looked back since. Well… It looks really good - it suits you. I think it frames your name nicely."

"Thanks! I like it. I just thought it seemed ungrammatical not to have it."

"Mm, yeah."

"Open the present!" yelled Storylover456, who had been unable to contain her excitement about what it might be, but had been generous enough to give it (whatever it was) to Kilgharrah. "I want to know what it is! Remember: if it's something bad, it's from the author, not me!"

Kilgharrah rolled his eyes and cleaned his glasses, before burping Aithusa. "Is she always like this?" he asked Lupa Dracolis, pointing his tail at Storylover, who was bouncing up and down on her seat with excitement.

"Unfortunately," answered Lupa, shooting her cousin a sullen glare.

Just then, the unmistakable clip-clop-stomp of Gaius' leather-studded boots (which he really ought not to be wearing, considering his previous lecture on giving up anachronisms) resounded down the trail to the dragon's lair. "What is going on in here?" he emerged, to see every single person currently in Camelot sitting around a suspiciously familiar round table eating cake off plates and doilies and drinking tea out of tiny pink cups. Gaius flapped his primrose-coloured invite about indignantly as he fumed: "This is outrageous!"

"Oh…" Kilgharrah seemed saddened. "Would you have preferred duck egg blue? I knew I should have gone for duck egg blue. The duck egg blue invites had little forget-me-not borders. They were very nice. You said so, didn't you, Para?"

Paralelsky nodded. "Yes. The duck egg blue invites were very nice. But I like the ones you chose, too. I told you that when you asked."

"I'm not talking about the invitations!" snapped Gaius. "Do you have any idea how anachronistic this is?"

A plot hole fizzled into existence at this like trumpet fanfare, depositing Jesa463 right in the middle of the abnormally large sugar bowl, and reinforcing his point.

"I can't believe you, Kilgharrah. As a creature of the Old Religion, I would have thought you'd know better!"

"Oh, come on, Gaius! I am so sick of having that 'creature of the Old Religion' thing thrown in my face all the time. Can't a dragon just have some fun every few centuries or so? Sit down, have a hobnob, everything's under control, isn't it, Gwen?"

"Err…" Gwen didn't seem to agree with Kilgharrah about this. She was busy stapling the tear in the plot-character continuum back together, as they'd given up on sewing it, only the staples flew out almost as fast as she put them in.

"See! Chillax, Gaius!" insisted Kilgharrah, holding out a cup of tea to him.

"I will _not_ chillax! I will _not_! This ends now! Oh… I give up on you lot. This is going take someone bigger than me…" he turned around to mutter something in the ear of a guard, who then promptly ran off to do his bidding. "I've had it!"

With that, Gaius screwed up his invitation, threw it on the floor and almost stormed off, before he remembered something else. "And another thing! Arthur, this is for you," he handed the young Pendragon a vile labelled 'word-count regrowth'. "It should counteract the effects of the drabbling." Then he did storm off.

"I knew I should have gone for duck egg blue," Kilgharrah sighed. "If his invitation had been duck egg blue that never would have happened; it's a soothing colour."

"Hey!" exclaimed V. "Where's Agravaine?"

Everybody mumbled innocuously and looked about them as if he was hiding somewhere. After all, that does sound like something he might do.

"Oops…" Paralelsky mumbled. "My bad. I think I forgot to invite him."

"Oh well," Kilgharrah shrugged it off. "Nobody really likes him anyway, do they?"

Arthur tried to protest at this, saying he actually thought his Uncle was a fabulous role model, but all he found himself capable of saying was, "Charge!" It seemed that now would be a good time to take his medication.

Unformal Sorrelle clicked her fingers as if something brilliant had occurred to her. "Maybe that's why he's such a jerk! That's his character motivation: nobody likes him!"

Everybody murmured in response to this and continued with their conversations. Gwaine hiccupped and disappeared under the bench.

**.**

YOU CAN COME OUT NOW

The sign read.

Why the sign was reading is anybody's guess, but it was, the Saturday paper, to be precise. What I'm trying to say is any lurking scaredy-cats who are trying to avoid spoilers are now perfectly safe. Well, I don't know that they're _perfectly_ safe. Who's that man standing right behind you, swinging an axe?

Made you look.

Gaius, not noticing the sign, was grumbling to himself sullenly as he pottered off down the corridor away from the dragon's lair, chuntering about just how ungrateful they all were and how unappreciated he was and how he simply didn't see why he should put up with it anymore. In fact, he was feeling rather a lot like Victor Meldrew, but he couldn't quite shake off the nagging feeling that he wasn't _supposed _to feel like Victor Meldrew. Something about being typecast. It made no sense to him at all and it was just making him grumpier.

The castle was oddly quiet. Or at least, so quiet that it would have been odd if Gaius had not already known that everybody who was normally to be found wandering about it had been invited to a tea party in the dragon's cave.

As he walked past a particularly nondescript alcove, he noticed a trail of earphones curving around a corner, presumably leading to an iPod. Gaius' nose twitched. He shuffled forwards a step, then he frowned, and stopped himself.

Gaius looked about shiftily.

There was no one there to see him. Why shouldn't he? It was practically _killing_ him, not being able to use technology! He'd been suffering withdrawal symptoms all day! His fingers itched with the desperate need to type and he kept seeing the word '_Wikipedia_' pop up blurrily in front of his vision.

Slowly, so that he could deny any involvement if he were to be caught, Gaius followed the earphones around the corner to the iPod they were connected to, and then suddenly, at the sight of it, guffawed with delight and skipped towards it, seizing it in his arms and kissing it with delight.

That was when the trap snapped.

A net dropped down from above, as quickly as Gaius' computer could download photos of himself, and he was ensnared.

"Mwa ha ha ha ha!" cackled Agravaine, leaping out from behind a pillar in an unforgivably silly manner. "I've got you now!"

"Yes. I suppose you have," Gaius conceded, as he rolled his eyes and put the earpieces in; he might as well get some fun out of the rotten situation. "What are you planning on doing with me?"

"Um…" Agravaine appeared disheartened; he stopped victory dancing. "I hadn't thought that far."

"Whoopee," muttered Gaius sarcastically, before groaning at the song selection he was provided with. "Westlife?"

Agravaine shrugged. "Their songs speak to me."

"Don't you have any Sex Pistols on here?" murmured the physician, shifting around in his net to try and get in a position that would be easier on the arthritis.

**.**

Paul the OC stood outside _Subway_ for a long time, considering whether or not to go in. The last seven shops he had entered had all thrown him out again when he had begun to explain his peculiar situation, and he had no good reason to believe that this one would be any different. All he had was a _feeling_. And what a feeling! He just couldn't tell if it was a good feeling or not.

"Hello," said Paul, as he finally worked up the courage and entered.

"Hi," replied Randy the guard, who you may or may not remember, depending on your ability to recall unimportant things. "What can I get for you?"

"Help," Paul told him plainly. When Randy just stood there, sandwich in hand, Paul thought he probably ought to elaborate. "Right, well, you see, the thing is… I was in the internet…"

He paused here, waiting for the inevitable interruption: 'don't you mean _on_ the internet?', but it didn't come. So he continued.

"In fanfictiondom…"

"Is that fanfiction dot com?" Randy clarified.

"Yeah! Yeah, that's the place!" Paul gripped the counter eagerly.

"I used to live there. Then I fell down a big hole in the middle of the floor and landed here. I tell you, I really didn't see that one coming."

"Me too!"

"I mean it," Randy stressed. "I really didn't see it coming. Otherwise I wouldn't have stepped on it, would I? Oh well. Things are alright now, once they realised I wasn't crazy."

"They thought you were crazy too?"

"Of course they did!" Randy scoffed. "You can't go around telling people you don't exist; it's not the done thing. No, existing is the thing to do here. Oh… they pretend they're liberal in their philosophic thinking, all that 'to be or not to be' rubbish, but as soon as you actually tell them for sure that you really are just the figment of somebody else's imagination, they're having none of it."

Paul blinked.

"I'm Randy." Randy watched Paul looking at him blankly. "You're an OC, aren't you?" asked Randy, making a cheese sandwich either because he wanted to keep his hands busy or out of sheer absent-mindedness.

"Yeah, yeah, I am."

Randy sized him up. "You look it. No offence mate; you're just simple. Have you got a name?"

"Paul."

"Right. I'm Randy."

"You said."

Randy looked at the sandwich in confusion for a minute, which suggests that he hadn't known he was making it, before throwing it away.

"So…" murmured Paul, looking around himself. He didn't look very inspired. "This is Real Life."

"Yeah," replied Randy. "Not so great, is it? It kind of sucks. I can see why they're always on the internet now."

"Do you think we'll ever be able to get back?" wondered Paul sadly, thinking of Vegetables.

"I don't know," Randy answered. "I'm working on it."

**.**

Cherrytree007 banged again on the invisible wall that appeared to be encasing her and rowellylovesgryffindor.

"They can't hear you," rowellylovesgryffindor insisted. "We're trapped in brackets. The whole point of brackets is to keep those words separate from the rest of the story."

"What? Words? _I'm_ words?" screamed Cherrytree007. "Why are we trapped in brackets?"

rowellylovesgryffindor could not answer this question.

"More importantly," Cherrytree007 went on. "How do we get out?"

rowellylovesgryffindor could not answer this question either.

"Arrgh!" Cherrytree007 screamed, banging and banging and banging, jumping up and down, as the brackets rolled down Camelot's streets like tumbleweed. To the outside observer there was nothing there, almost all the sound was absorbed and they were practically invisible, only seen vaguely out of the corners of people's eyes.

"This is so cool!" rowellylovesgryffindor squealed, as they tumbled straight past Gaius' gang. "It's like an invisibility cloak you can't get out of!"

Cherrytree007 rolled her eyes and hit the brackets again, trying to figure out how to get out.

Of course, if she'd bothered to ask the brackets, who were busy sniggering away at their evil plan to subtly revolt against the people, they could have told her. _Could_ being the operative word here; they almost certainly would have just sniggered some more.

Elizakiwi, who was midway through placing an order at The Rising Sun tavern (which had been nearly forced out of business since Gaius had stripped them of all their high-tech, modern gadgets, and forced them to go back to being 'old-fashioned'), turned around and frowned.

"What's up?" asked Ringo'simaginarycat.

"Oh, nothing," she answered, turning back to ask for a glass of whatever Gwaine _hadn't_ been drinking (he'd ended up there after Kilgharrah's birthday do and was now unconscious). "I just thought… Did you see that?"

"What?" Ringo's looked in the direction she was looking in, where Cherrytree007 and rowellylovesgryffindor were rolling away, almost as if they were trapped in a giant, invisible hamster ball, but saw absolutely nothing.

"Oh… never mind." Elizakiwi paid for the drinks and went inside, to go and have a serious chat with the others about where exactly Gaius had got to.

M. Diane was heading up the discussion, frowning very seriously and taking down notes in one of Lancelot's sparkly notebooks (no, she hadn't asked his permission). "Right… So the top theory at the moment is that he's snuck off somewhere to go and use some technology?"

"Absolutely," agreed Elizakiwi, as she and Ringo's sat down. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Unless he's been kidnapped…" mused Autumne255. "What am I saying? Why would someone kidnap Gaius? To torture him for valuable information on lavender?"

"Hmm…" Nicicia rubbed her chin. "It does _sound_ like a silly suggestion… But, you know, when I was leaving Kilgharrah's tea party earlier, I saw Agravaine dragging around a massive, wriggling body bag. I didn't think anything of it at the time…"

"He is always up to something," Loopstagirl pointed out. "But up to something with Gaius? I don't know. Maybe he was just kidnapping a friend. It's probably how he makes them."

They all nodded in agreement.

"Speaking of Kilgharrah's tea party," Elyan began, looking queasy. "Did anyone else try that hundred year old…"

"Thousand year old," Nicicia corrected him.

"Thousand year old," Elyan tried again. "Cake?"

They all shook their heads.

"I dared Gwaine to eat a slice, and he turned purple," Autumne255 told them.

"Purple?" echoed M. Diane and Loopstagirl in disbelief.

"I feel sick…" Elyan mumbled, rubbing his poor little tummy. "I might have to take the day off work."

"Elyan! Coo-ee! Elyan!" called Percy, wiggling his fingers at his buddy from down the bar, before grabbing his man bag and sauntering over. "I didn't see you over there! Hi guys!"

"Hey Percy," they chorused.

"Murph," said Elyan, who looked fit to vomit.

Percy had not noticed this. He slung an arm around his friend's shoulders and cuddled him close. "I'm so glad I saw you here today! I thought maybe we could go and do some sword practice together? Or even go to the Blacksmith's? I remember you saying you needed to get your shield mended."

"Ernuck," gurgled Elyan.

Nobody saw Leon, who was glaring at them from the shadows, and who had just got so angry that he'd squeezed his glass to the point of shattering it into little splinters all over the floor.

"Did you just hear that cliché?" asked Percy, turning around to discover the source.

"What cliché?" Ringo's inquired.

"This one!" declared Leon, emerging from the shadows and sashaying towards his friends. "What's this then, Percy? It looks like I've been replaced."

Percy shot Leon a sympathetic, slightly patronising look. "Oh, Leon. I'm sorry, petal. But you have to understand, Percyan is just _so_ in right now. Peon is _so_ yesterday!"

Leon was just about to retort to this when Elyan swivelled on his seat and vomited all over Leon's shoes.

There was silence for a while. Then Elizakiwi said, "I'm glad I didn't try the cake." And that just about summed that up.

**.**

Aredian the Witchfinder clicked his black leather boots together and scowled.

The assembled characters collectively gulped.

"Welcome to Basics of Canon 101," he gritted his teeth together and spread some of his unpleasant looking instruments of torture out over the desk. Amongst them he found a cuddly, pink elephant toy, which he grabbed quickly and stuffed in his coat pocket, muttering something about wondering where Mr Trunkle had got to. "Right… Who understood what I just said?" he continued.

Cautiously, the characters, who were spread out sitting behind desks throughout the classroom, raised their hands.

"Wrong!" yelled Aredian. "You don't know anything about canon! You don't know anything about fanfiction! You don't know anything about anything!" The characters hastened to contradict him. "Shush! Can't you hear what you're doing to the plot-character continuum? I don't care what you _actually_ know, those are the rules. You keep all of that dangerous information to yourself, locked up in your head. Yes, Guinevere?"

Gwen lowered her hand. "Mr Witch Finder, this might sound like an impertinent question, and I know you said that we weren't supposed to know anything about canon, but aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Yeah?" taunted the class.

"Silence!" insisted Aredian, producing a whip from behind his desk and lashing it right out to the back of the room to tickle Agravaine's nose. "I didn't _die_! Nobody saw me die, did they?"

Arthur and Uther raised their hands sheepishly.

"Ah!" Aredian snapped his fingers. "Think about it! What did you really see?"

"You fell out of the window…" Uther began, confused.

"Exactly! I fell out of the window. Canon's a tricky thing, isn't it? Just because you winced doesn't mean I died. Anybody with any sense could have told you I fell onto a trampoline, bounced onto a strategically placed horse and rode away to freedom! But I suggest you don't worry about it. Now… You have two simple jobs. Merlin, what are they?"

"Err… To save Camelot and to not tell anyone my secret?"

Aredian leaned in over his desk. "What's your secret?"

"I'm the most powerful wizard ever."

Aredian promptly slapped him over the back of the head Gibbs-style, but, fortunately for Merlin, Arthur and Uther were far too busy throwing paper aeroplanes at each other to notice what he'd said and promptly have him executed.

"Your two jobs are these: to stick to character and to stick to script. I don't care what's happening around you, I don't care what other people are doing: it's on with the show! Right! Pair up. We're going to start with a basic sticking to script exercise. Are you all in pairs?"

There was the sound of chairs scraping on the floor as people shuffled around. Leon elbowed Gwaine to wake him up.

"Yes," they chanted.

"Good. Now, one of you needs to be A and the other B. Decide amongst yourselves. As come up to the desk and take a script. In your pairs have a quick read through. Now, you'll see that the script is of two people, A and B, conveniently. Here is what I want you to do: start by reading your parts. But Bs, I want you to begin to deviate from the script."

"Deviate, sir?" muttered Elyan, who was still clutching his stomach.

"Yes. Deviate. And I like this sir thing, by the way. Keep that up. Remember: deviate! Make things up. Go wild! Completely crazy! Do whatever you can do to try and distract A, to throw them off. But A, and this is the important part, A _must stick to script_; no matter what B does."

"No matter what B does?" echoed Leon.

"Yes, Sir Leon. That is what I just said."

"But, sir, what if B punches me in the face?" asked Leon, looking worriedly at Gwaine, who had been designated B and was grinning wickedly.

"I don't care. You _must stick to script_. This is for your own good. Trust me: Gaius asked for the best, and that's me. Where is Gaius anyway?"

"No one knows…" answered Gwen mysteriously. Agravaine looked uncommonly pleased with himself.

"Well, never mind. Off you go! The best deviater wins a lollipop! And the worst sticker-to-script will be tortured mercilessly on this!" he produced a pair of strange handcuffs that looked like sharks' jaws, attached to a long, swinging pole.

Everybody got going eagerly after that.

Aredian strolled around the desks, offering words of advice, criticism, and the odd sour expression. Eventually, he found himself in a dark alcove right at the very back of the room, where Lancelot was sitting, with the lid of his desk up, hiding behind it and listening to his iPod.

"What do you think you're doing?" snapped Aredian, shutting the lid suddenly and causing Lancelot to glare up at him sullenly. "What is this?" He snatched the iPod off the snarky knight and scowled down at it.

"I'm listening to Garbage."

Aredian, who could now hear the music blaring through the ear pieces, was inclined to agree; his tastes tended in a different direction - musical theatre, if you must know.

"Only Happy When It Rains," muttered Lancelot, gazing out of the window, where it wasn't raining. He was unhappy about this.

"What?" asked Aredian.

Lancelot grunted like a teenage boy. "I'm only happy when it rains, I'm only happy when it's complicated. And though I know you can't appreciate it, I'm only happy when it rains. You know I love it when the news is bad, why it feels so good to feel so sad, I'm only happy when it rains."

Aredian did not seem any more enlightened.

"Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me," moaned Lancelot.

Aredian waved his hand under Lancelot's nose. "Yes, yes. That's quite enough of that. I'll not have you bringing anymore of these anachronistic, plot hole creating devices into my lessons, young man. Is that clear?"

"I only smile in the dark," was Lancelot's reply.

The witch finder was silent for a second, then he slid the iPod into his pocket. "I'm keeping this, for the sake of your sanity."

Just then, before Lancelot could protest further about just how very miserable he was, there was a knock at the door, and Gaius came in without waiting to be asked to enter. Agravaine gawped at him moronically, looking remarkably like a face on the screen of a TV when something is paused - inevitably it will be paused midway through someone looking stupid. Gaius winked at him.

"Hello there, Aredian. I've come about a student of yours. Ah… I see the two of you have already met. Lancelot?"

Lancelot was re-applying his eyeliner and considering how nobody understood him.

"Lancelot?" Aredian tapped his pupil on the shoulder. "Gaius needs you."

"Whatever," murmured Lancelot, getting to his feet and skulking off out into the corridor.

"Oh… Aredian?" Gaius called, as Lancelot shoved past him, staring at his feet.

Aredian, who was a little concerned at that moment about the fact that Sir Gwaine had currently climbed onto Sir Leon's back and stuck his fingers up his nose, but Sir Leon was still insisting that the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain. "Yes, Gaius?"

"I have some help for you in the form of a new Personal Learning Assistant. I thought you might need it, with this class."

Aredian nodded faintly, and Gaius sent Magnusrae in.

"Thanks, Gaius!" Magnusrae enthused, bouncing past him. "You were right about capitalisation - it's given me so much energy!"

"Yes… well," he coughed. "Inappropriate lower case lettering is often a sign of laziness. Get on with you; before Gwaine pokes his fingers so far up Leon's nose he permanently damages the poor sod's brain.

In the corridor, Gaius and Lancelot could hear Aredian and Magnusrae desperately trying to cope with the class.

"_Merlin! Arthur! That is _not _canon!"_

"_Percival! Now is not the time to be applying lipstick! And that is not your shade!"_

"_Uther! Will you please stop threatening to kill everybody? Yes… Yes I know that _is_ canon, but it's not in the script! And it's frightening your partner!"_

As Lancelot scowled up at Gaius, before Gaius could open his mouth, a spoiler alert came racing past them, with the cook in hot pursuit.

"Aargh!" screeched the spoiler alert, panting as it pushed its glasses up its nose. "This woman's insane! Oh wait, I mean, something's about to happen that you might possibly not want to happen if you don't want to know things about things and I think… Oh!" it wailed. "Stop chasing me! It's so hard to remain appropriately ambiguous with you chasing me! I'll get fired!"

Gaius caught the cook by the edge of her skirt and promptly stopped her manic chasing of the poor little spoiler alert, who scuttled off, whooping and wailing.

"In there," Gaius instructed, pointing to Aredian's class, and she did as told, muttering under her breath about poisoning them all.

The cook had, of course, not formerly been thought to be worthy of being capable of breaking out of canon, but clearly that presumption was wrong.

"Now, Lancelot," Gaius began. "I believe I may have a solution to your problem."

Lancelot said nothing.

"Well… One of your problems. The canon cannons are looking for _Lancelot_. If we officially re-tag you, you'll be safe."

"Re-tag me?" murmured Lancelot. He wasn't interested, of course. He was far too unhappy to bother being _interested_ in things.

"Yes. If you just stand still for a minute and let me alter that little flashing light above your head, do you see it?"

Lancelot looked up at the little neon line of writing that read: _Lancelot_.

"No," he answered, moodily. "I see no light. Only darkness."

"Lovely." Gaius removed a permanent marker from his pocket and scribbled three extra letters and an exclamation mark at the beginning of Lancelot's name. "There now. You're: _Emo!Lancelot._ You should be perfectly safe; you won't need to skulk in the shadows."

Emo!Lancelot stared at Gaius for a minute. Then he said: "I like the shadows. They understand me."

"Fabulous. Well, have this." Gaius wrote him a slip excusing him from any further Canon Classes. "There's no point in you attending the lessons, since you're no longer on the show."

Emo!Lancelot's lip twitched. He took the slip and stalked off.

"Righteo…" Gaius murmured to himself, preparing to pop back into class and re-tag Uther as _Crazy!Uther_, when Agravaine snuck sneakily through the door only to stare at the physician in disbelief.

"How did you get out?"

Gaius wiggled his eyebrows. "Agravaine… These classes you are attending are classes in canon, are they not?"

Agravaine nodded.

"Well, on the show, to stick to canon, I may be obliged to do as you say and pretend I don't know your game, you pathetic, simpering, pudding-faced oaf. But fanfiction is my domain. If you want to last five minutes I suggest you keep your trap shut and stay out of my way. There are no cameras on you now, Agravaine, and it would be no great loss to the viewers were you to simply disappear; I believe many of them are clamouring for it."

With that, Gaius went back into the class room to go and claim Uther, and Agravaine put an arm around Sandhurst, and tried not to cry.

The little spoiler alert, who had been hiding from the cook, peeked out from behind a pillar, and saw she'd gone away now.

"IT'S SAFE AGAIN!" he screeched. "IT'S NEVER BEEN SAFER!"

**.**

In Camelot's courtyard reparations had been made to the second rip in the plot-character continuum; deleted scenes (which had been discovered on random reels in the dungeons) were being nailed across the floor, to stop anyone else falling down the hole.

Once it was all nicely finished, it looked a little blurry from a distance as the scenes merged, but still like the same old courtyard. It was walking across it that caused confusion: it was like travelling through a time vortex, only an awkwardly edited one with the director yelling 'cut' every five seconds.

No one was particularly bothered about the disappearances of the OCs. After all, that was what they were there for: to disappear/die/charge into battle when important characters didn't fancy it.

Vegetables and Crazy!Uther were overseeing the reparations. Vegetables was also busy dividing all of the authors into factions for the expected war against Morgana and Morgause. She had just finalised the list of names for The Camelot Camels (Camelot's new a cappella band, as news had reached them from their spy within Morgana's camp that the sisters were planning to attack using a cappella, and they must be prepared, therefore they were to form their own band in retaliation) when some bloke tootled up to her and mumbled something in her ear.

"What?" screeched Vegetables. Clearly she was not pleased.

Some bloke ran off.

Crazy!Uther looked concerned. "What's wrong?"

"It's Paul!" she told him. "Apparently he was one of the OCs who fell! I thought he was safely hibernating! It must have been that gap in between chapters! Stupid author. I have to do something… I'm going to go and write him back! Excuse me, Crazy!Uther. Could you pin this list up on the notice board in the author's common room?"

**.**

YOUTHFULwolfie, Professor of spellological studies, and Catindahat, Dean of Spelling, were walking up a flight of stairs, carrying between them an Ottoman, which they had only just ceased to be an Otterman (a funny little otter-shaped creature with the face and brain of a human).

"I never realised correcting typos could be such hard work," huffed Catindahat, as they struggled to turn a corner, shifting the piece of furniture between them, with a little bit of to-me, to-you, to-me, to-you. "We're so behind on cases! Why did we go to that stupid tea party in the first place?"

"Because," YOUTHFULwolfie explained. "You don't argue with a dragon."

All of a sudden there was a piercing, girly scream from Arthur Pendragon's chambers that could only have been caused by bad spelling. From all over Camelot, the Spelling Squad ran to aid him.

"Never fear!" exclaimed IceCreamDoodle13, bursting through the doors last. "Doctor Spell is here!"

Kitty O nodded her head. "Yes, yes. Arthur Pendragon, the SS is at your service."

They all frowned.

"Hm…" mumbled IceCreamDoodle. "I think we're going to have to think of a new name."

"Never mind that," decided Kitty O. "Your Highness, what seems to be the problem? I am Kitty Orleans, Executive Speller in Dep.t of Typo-Incidental Typographical Studies and head of the Spelling… err… Alliance."

"Allegiance?" suggested Jasper's Baltimore Babe. "Hey Arthur," she curtsied. "I'm Jasper's, Spellererer in Charge."

Nimbus Llelwyn, Manager of Spellees, frowned. "In charge of what?"

"I don't know," answered Jasper's. "They're just arbitrary titles, aren't they?"

"And I'm Cool Carrot!" announced Cool Carrot. "I'm Super Speller. It comes with this shiny sticker. I feel a bit patronised…"

"Enough!" declared Arthur. "_Spell_ing, you say?"

"No," YOUTHFULwolfie answered quickly, anticipating his turn of mind. "It's got nothing to do with witchcraft."

"We tackle typos," Catindahat explained.

"Well then! You are just the people I am looking for! You have to help me!"

"With what?" asked Kitty O.

"Can't you see the problem?" Nobody could see the problem. "My chambers! The stupid author's missed the 's' off my chambers! Look how much smaller my room is!"

IceCreamDoodle13 facepalmed as a plot hole catapulted Peaceful Defender down into Arthur's smaller than usual bedroom.

"Is that all?" demanded an outraged Nimbus Llelwyn. "I just left an OC with a knows for a nose for this!"

"And look!" yelled Jasper's, pointing behind her at a creepy looking group of people carrying an Ouija board. "I had to bring my occult following with me!"

"A cult following," Cool Carrot corrected the typo. "The show has a cult following."

All of a sudden the group of people behind them stopped trying to contact the dead and instead went back to being a little too into _Merlin_ for their own respective goods.

Everybody in the room groaned. "Stupid author!"

**.**

The vast majority of the authors were collected in the authors' common room, gathered around the notice board with interest. Apparently Vegetables had decided to organise them all into factions in preparation for the upcoming war with the Twisted Sisters.

miskris95, who had shaved her eyeballs and could now see perfectly well, was rather excited at the prospect of forming an a capella group. Jesa463, who had also been signed up for said band, was not quite so thrilled.

"It says here," Jesa grumbled, pointing at the notice. "That the band comes with regulatory costumes. Do you think they'll be ridiculous?"

"Of course they'll be ridiculous," MiscPurpleEccentric94 sighed resignedly. "Everything here is ridiculous. What makes you think our costumes would be the exception?"

miskris95's enthusiasm would not be dampened. "I think it'll be fun, guys! We can rally Camelotians' spirits!"

"'Camelotians' isn't a word," muttered SilverHeart09, who was absolutely dreading the thought of costumes.

miskris95 frowned. "Well… what is the right word then?"

SilverHeart09 shrugged. "There isn't one."

"PEOPLE OF CAMELOT!" yelled MiscPurpleEccentric94, in her best Uther impression.

There came a sudden, thunderous shout, which knocked _eFox_ over, of: "What?" in response.

"Nothing!" MiscPurpleEccentric94 called back. "False alarm."

The people of Camelot grumbled in response, and got back to what they had been doing.

"What was that for?" demanded Jesa463.

"That's what you call them," MiscPurpleEccentric94 explained. "Not 'Camelotians', people of Camelot."

"What?" the great, irritated yell sounded once more.

"Nothing!" MiscPurpleEccentric94 assured them. "It's nothing."

"I wish she'd stop doing that…" they muttered unhappily, and not very quietly, rolling their collective eyes in the distance.

"Well, now we have a word for them: Camelotians," announced miskris95 happily, proud of her ingenuity. "Plus they won't say 'what?' every time you say Camelotians, like they do when you say 'people of Camelot'."

"WHAT?"

"Nothing!" all the authors bellowed back.

The people of Camelot were not amused.

"Hey, I'm in the band too!" squealed _eFox_, who had just got back up, and was looking at the list of names under 'Camelot Camels - A Cappella Band'. "How come I'm the only one without a number? Am I missing out on something?"

The other authors all stopped to look at each other, observing the numbered ID bracelets around their wrists to avoid confusion with other authors of the same name.

"Not really," SilverHeart09 admitted. "I don't notice it much. Although sometimes it sets off the metal detectors at airports."

As for the rest of the authors, unsurprisingly enough, Gaius' Gang and the Spelling Alliance had been left in peace, since resorting them could only end in arguments; Magnusrae, as you know, was attempting to help Aridian coach the characters in canon; and Blue Dragon of Rivendell had been deputed to go and join Kilgharrah, at his request. A special team of Plotbunny Handlers (consisting of Whirlwind421, Storylover456, Peaceful Defender, UnformalSorrelle, MerlinJustGiveMeTheMuffins and bubblepunk12) had also been set up, with the task of sneaking said bunnies out of the house of one Guinevere (who was being remarkably uncooperative) and writing them out.

Some authors, however, appeared to have been omitted from the various factions.

Jissai was sitting on a sofa in the corner, drinking a cup of Gaius' special brew and scowling.

_Why wasn't he being allowed to play with the other children?_

It was a question he had often asked himself over the years.

Lupa Dracolis, who had apparently been sitting on the other end of the sofa the entire time, looked up at him. "Vegetables says you're bad influence on the other authors," she told him.

He didn't bother to ask her how she had apparently read his mind, he just nodded.

V appeared from the shadows behind them, in a Dracula-like manner. "Have you guys been left off the list too?"

They both nodded.

MoonlightSpiritWolf rolled out from underneath the sofa. "Me too."

"Me three!" Laughy-Taffy the Grape announced, lolloping towards them from the other side of the room and totally ruining the strange, creepy vibe they had had going.

Just then there was a strange, squealing noise, and all the authors in the noise screamed and hid, or covered their eyes.

"It's a spoiler!" howled eFox. "Someone tell me when it's gone!"

But amidst the panicked shrieking, wailing and rolling around on the floor mumbling, "Don't look, don't look, don't look…" Jissai had a thought. He peered through his fingers at the spoiler.

It was like looking directly at the sun. Now he thought about it, it was so blindingly obvious that that was what was going to happen! He could do nothing but sit there, staring at it, as it burned itself onto the backs of his eyes.

"It's gone!" exclaimed Jesa463. "We're safe! I heard the spoiler siren! It's okay, we can look now!"

Everyone else went back to what they had been doing previously, but Jissai just sat there, peering through the gaps in between his fingers. He could never un-see what he had just seen, and he kind of liked that feeling. "Hey," he muttered to the others. "I have an idea for our faction." He turned to look at Laughy-Taffy the Grape. "But I think you are seriously going to have to consider changing your name; it's not sinister enough."

Everybody leaned in to hear his idea, and if any of the other authors in the room had happened to see them huddling together over the sofa, they would have guessed that something bad was happening.

**.**

Gaius, busy physicianing away in his chambers - much calmer now all the typos had been deemed 'someone else's problem' - was suddenly interrupted by a very flustered Merlin.

"Gaius!" he boomed, in his deep, manly voice. "We have a problem!"

"And what might that be?" inquired Gaius, as he finished ironing eF_ox_.

Merlin fidgeted on the spot as if he needed the toilet.

"Spit it out!"

"I've grown my first underarm hair!"

Gaius peered over the top of his spectacles at the young _man_ in front of him. "Take your shirt off, Merlin."

Merlin did as he was told, and lifted up his left arm. "Here," he pointed to his armpit. "You see?"

Gaius grabbed his magnifying glass from the table and peered at Merlin's armpit, looking down his nose at the _thing_. "Hmm… I believe you're right. It's no great concern, but you must remember to use deodorant. You don't want to start smelling like Agravaine."

Merlin pulled a face. "But can't you get rid of it?"

"Well…" Gaius produced a disturbingly large pair of tweezers from under his table. "We could pluck it?"

"Err… Never mind." Merlin stuck his shirt back on quickly and legged it out of there.

"Gaius?" called eFox from the ironing board. "Can I leave now? This thing is leaving an imprint on my face."

"Hm? Oh, yes. Of course. You're as straight as a plank."

**.**

In break, between Aredian's classes, Agravaine was unwrapping his packed lunch and feeling sorry for himself. He had lost Sandhurst and he did not understand why the sign stuck to his back that read 'Kick Me' was funny. Everyone else seemed to find it funny, though. Muttering angrily to himself about needing to find a hedgehog to kick, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted Morgana.

_did u stik a note 2 my bak?_

He stomped angrily along the halls and waited for a response.

_lol. no. what does it say_

_kick me_

_trollololololololololololol. has anyone kicked you yet_

_no they wud not dare_

_lol. i would_

As if he knew what Agravaine was thinking (which he definitely didn't, because, if he did, then he'd be out of Camelot like a shot) Arthur appeared and kicked Agravaine up the arse.

"Ouch!" squealed Agravaine.

Arthur put his hands up defensively. "It says to kick you!"

"Whatever," grumbled Agravaine, before shuffling off in such a sulk that Lancelot, who was watching from the shadows, started crying; he wasn't even the best at being depressed anymore.

_why havent you taken it off_

Was Morgana's next question.

_i tryd. its stuck on with suprglu or sumfink. i h8 life. i bet it was gaius, u no_

_whatever. i have bigger problems right now. i keep trying to ditch my stupid sister, but i can't. she's smothering me! its like uther all over again_

_wow mrgna, bein beutifl n havn a lovin sista must b rly tuff_

_yeah. it so is. by the way your texting is really annoying me. could you use more letters pls, kthx_

_i cant! its th stupd keys thyr 2 smal 4 my fingrs its takin me 4evr 2 typ_

_oh. i guess i'll just have to find another text buddy then_

_no! pls mrgna i cn chnge_

_wevz_

Agravaine, for whom Morgana's attention was like oxygen, began to suffocate in the middle of the corridor. He fell to the ground in a heap, collapsing exhaustedly, and apparently farting.

Several authors leaped out from behind a pillar, laughing and pointing gleefully, before running away. Agravaine pulled a whoopee cushion out from his pocket, where someone had stuffed it. The note stuck to it read: "We declare a prank war, you slimy-haired, monkey-faced muppet".

"I hate authors," he managed to choke.

_hey agravaine_

Morgana texted suddenly.

_im bored. text me a picture of ur face. its funneh_

Suddenly he could breathe again.

The bell rang all around the castle, signalling the end of break and the return to canon classes, and Agravaine skipped back with a big, goofy smile on his face, that was indeed very 'funneh'.

**.**

The Plotbunny Handlers were hiding outside Gwen's house, peering in through the window. They looked very suspicious, but, then again, so do roughly 50-75% of the folk passing through Camelot, and people just tend not to question it.

"You want us to go in there," Storylover456 whispered nervously, "and steal a bunny?"

"Yes and no," answered Vegetables. "Not _a _bunny. More like as many bunnies as you can carry."

Unformal Sorrelle gulped.

Gwen, totally oblivious to their presence, twirled past them (the other side of the window, of course) singing a song about nettle stings actually being nice, if you put your mind to it.

"I don't want to," whimpered Whirlwind421.

"What if she catches us?" asked MerlinJustGiveMeTheMuffins, panicking.

"Just tell her you're looking for rats," Vegetables told them reassuringly.

"Rats?" Peaceful Defender was not very impressed by this. Neither was anybody else.

bubblepunk12 screamed as she saw Gwen picking up her broom.

"Fine…" Vegetables groaned. "If you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. I'll create a distraction, and you go round the back way."

"What if it's locked?" wondered Whirlwind421.

Vegetables scowled. "Don't ask silly questions!"

"Gwen never seems to lock her doors," Unformal Sorrelle observed. "Which is funny really. Camelot doesn't seem like the sort of safe place where you would think you could leave your front door open, what with all the flying monkeys…"

"And the sword-fighting skeletons," added bubblepunk12.

Storylover456 nodded. "And the constant battles, attacks from evil witches and wizards…"

"Yes. There's far too much peril around for people to be leaving their doors unlocked," decided Peaceful Defender.

Vegetables rolled her eyes. "Will you lot just go round the back and wait for the signal?"

"What's the signal?" asked MerlinJustGiveMeTheMuffins.

"I dunno. I'll scream or something."

They began to move round to the back of Gwen's house, before Vegetables stopped them. "Oh! I almost forgot: could you look for Paul's plotbunny for me? It's purple and has a sparkly tail, and likes to bite people. I need it to write him back in."

"Yep!" Whirlwind421 called over her shoulder as they took their places.

"Arrgh!" screamed Vegetables. "I appear to be being mauled by some giant rat with the nether region of a goat and the face of my old school teacher! It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen! Its claws are like bookends! Wait, bookends? That was a weird analogy. Never mind. I'm in _agony_. IT IS LITERALLY RIPPING OFF MY FLESH AS I STAND HERE YELLING AT YOU DEMENTEDLY! ARRGGHH!"

You can probably guess how it went after that.

**.**

In the dragon's lair, Blue Dragon of Rivendell had been given the task of tidying up the cave post-party (apparently as punishment for posing as a dragon without the proper license from the Druid Council, but really it was just because Kilgharrah was too lazy) and Paralelsky and the Great Dragon himself were watching the chessboard without actually playing any chess.

The following paragraph, which is set in the corner near the giant tear in the plot-character continuum, has big red tape surrounding it that reads, "SPOILERS". Reader discretion is advised.

The most recent method of patching up the tear in the plot-character continuum was apparently plastering it back together, which Arrow'Nash was attempting in the corner, to no great success. She had also been left to supervise Aithusa, and since she was the least responsible one there (with the possible exception of Kilgharrah, who had tried to feed the baby dragon shoe polish because he 'thought it might be funny'), this wasn't a particularly brilliant idea.

Readers are now safe to proceed. Any readers adversely affected by the aforementioned paragraph are advised to go and cry in a corner Lancelot-style.

"Ah, Young Warlock," said Kilgharrah, five minutes before Merlin entered the cave. "There you are."

Merlin nodded.

"I have something very important to tell you."

Merlin stopped making cooing noises at his manly baby belly, and looked serious. "Is it about…?"

"Merlin," Kilgharrah scratched the back of his scaly neck awkwardly with his talons. "I have a bit of a story to tell you. And, trust me, one day; you're going to think this is _really funny_."

For some reason, Merlin had a feeling that wasn't the case, but he sat down obligingly nonetheless.

"Hundreds of years ago, when I was a young dragon, I had friends."

"Really?" asked Merlin, disbelievingly.

Kilgharrah was not amused. "Yes, really. I must ask you not to interrupt. My two closest friends were a witch, actually, it was Nimueh," Merlin made a sound of protestation at this, and Kilgharrah justified himself by saying: "Hey! She used to be cool." And then he continued. "And my other friend was a human, severely lacking in any redeeming features, much like your friend, Prince Arthur. His name was Desmond, but we called him Des, for short. Actually," Kilgharrah chuckled at this, as though he was remembering fond memories. "We called him Tiny Des, because he was quite little. And not just little compared to a dragon, but _little_. Anyway, Tiny Des had these dreams, and he thought they were prophetic. He used to go into inns all over the kingdom and make outlandish bets, saying he knew the future, and everyone thought it was easy money. It was pretty funny actually. Then Nimueh and I realised we could _make_ money off it. We were powerful enough to make most of the things he predicted happen, and that was the really funny part, because we didn't tell him!" Kilgharrah chortled. "He really believed he was a seer! Funny little chap. Anyway, one day, I was teasing him, as Nimueh and I often did, and I suggested that, err… that he write down all of these 'prophecies'. I didn't know he'd actually gone and done it. But it turns out, Merlin, that he did." Kilgharrah produced from behind him a wizened old book, covered in Druid symbols. "This isn't the original version; they don't let people touch that. Um…" Kilgharrah looked awkward. "What happened was… He wrote it all down, everything that he ever thought was going to happen… and gave it to the druids. Only there was a _slight_ misunderstanding about his name, you see: because Des is his first name, they thought that Tiny was his surname, so they thought his name was Des Tiny."

Merlin, who currently looked as though he was sitting on a melon, took this information in.

"Interestingly, uh…" Kilgharrah opened the book. "He's written rather a lot about this warlock called Emrys, and a prince called Arthur, who one day will unite a land called Albion…"

Merlin twitched.

"Merlin?" called Paralelsky, concerned about the interesting shade of yellow his face was currently turning.

"Are you telling me," Merlin asked slowly. "That destiny isn't real?"

"No, Merlin, no!" exclaimed Kilgharrah. "Of course not! It's just not _quite_ the abstract concept we once thought it was. Destiny was, in fact, a small ginger man who liked to pick flowers for his mother."

"I don't believe this…" Merlin muttered.

"Oh… Don't feel bad, Merls," Kilgharrah assured him. "Besides, all that gambling earned me lots of nice, shiny bling!" he pointed with his tail to a locked chest the other side of the cave.

Merlin shook his head. "My life is a lie."

"No it's not," Kilgharrah insisted. "In fact, I'd think this is a bit of a relief, frankly. Now you're free to be your own person, do your own thing! Be who you want to be!"

Merlin took this in. "Yeah… Yeah! You're right! Thanks Kilgharrah."

"Hey: if you ever want someone to shatter all of your dearly beliefs about everything, I'm your dragon."

Merlin nodded his head and struggled to his feet, looking confused, but generally relieved.

"You know," mused Paralelsky. "I was in a similair situation to this once."

"You were?" asked Merlin hopefully, wanting advice.

"Wait…" murmured Arrow'Nash, whose finely-tuned ear could detect a typo at eight hundred paces. "Did you say _similair_?"

At that, one massive plot hole burst into existence right next to the entrance to the dragon's lair, in fact creating a parallel entrance that looked almost identical. Everyone was so very interested in this tunnel, or whatever it was, that no one took much notice of Thelosthungergames, who hit the cave floor with quite a loud smack, and might have needed medical attention, if the whole thing hadn't been fictional.

"Where does it go?" wondered Merlin.

But before anyone could advise him against finding out (these things never seemed to end well on the show, after all) he had lolloped in, and was staring at something that was almost an exact copy of Kilgharrah's cave, except there was no Kilgharrah in it, and its walls were covered in strange, tall mirrors. It was the similair.

What Merlin found strangest of all was what he saw when he looked in the mirrors. He couldn't puzzle that out at all.

**.**

"We've been past that tree before."

"Shut up, Morgana."

"I will not shut up! We've been past that tree before!"

Morgause began to grind her teeth together in an irritating fashion.

Morgana scowled and flipped out her mobile so she could text Agravaine, but he wasn't texting her back, apparently he was stuck in some stupid lessons at school. And Gaius knew about their evil plans. Morgana pouted.

Morgause, who had been weakened by her interaction with the canon cannon, was being carried along in a cart made of Terrences. The Terrences were not sure why they were doing it (especially the Terrences currently pretending to be wheels and making 'rumbly rumbly rumbly' noises) but it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Slartibartfast felt left out: all the Terrences had slotted together neatly like a table from Ikea, and he'd been left to 'guard the prisoners'. The prisoners, who resented being guarded, were ignoring him.

"We've been past that tree before," observed a Terrence, casually.

Morgana, who, now that series four had begun, was no longer clinging to her sister like a co-dependent little parasite, but was instead Evil, with a capital 'e', meant serious business. She could betray people by herself, she didn't need someone holding her hand and telling her how to stab her family in the back, thank you very much! All she needed to do was find this 'Emrys' person she had dreamt of…

"Mordred," she began, conversationally, turning to the little boy riding an evil-looking pony beside her. Mordred was already suspicious. "You're down with the druids, right?"

"Well…" he shrugged. "I don't know. They did sort of abandon me in a forest, so I'm probably not on their Christmas card list or anything…"

Morgana, as usual, wasn't listening. "Hmm, yes. Well, I was wondering if you knew anything about a man called 'Emrys'?"

Mordred looked at her as if she was stupid. "Emrys?"

"Yes. Emrys."

"But… I've already told you who Emrys is."

"Really? Who?"

Mordred frowned. "Merlin."

"Who?"

"Merlin!"

Morgana leaned towards him in her saddle, straining to hear. "Who?"

"MERLIN!"

"No. It's no good, Mordred. I can't hear a word you're saying. You children nowadays. You must learn to _enunciate_."

Mordred scowled.

"We have definitely been past that tree before," a Terrence decided.

Morgana giggled. "By the way, you would not believe what Agravaine texted me this morning."

"What?" asked Mordred, as he was clearly required to. He rolled his eyes at Scales, the fish, who he was keeping tucked under his arm, as far away from the crazy witch as possible.

"It's about Merlin."

"Who?" he asked, mockingly.

Morgana scowled. "Merlin! Honestly, Mordred, are you deaf?"

Mordred was not amused. He was on the verge of cursing her to eternal damnation when she continued babbling. Scales looked up at him, with his big googly fish eyes crossed in an expression that told him that would not have been a very nice thing to do, anyway. Mordred huffed, but petted Scales' bowl lovingly.

"Agravaine says that apparently Merlin and Arthur are married! Isn't that the funniest thing you ever heard?"

Mordred shrugged.

"I'll have no competition for Queen of Camelot now!" Morgana cackled madly.

Mordred wanted to point out to her that she might actually have twice the competition, but he thought it wise not to.

She withdrew her blackberry from her sleeve and started typing. "I'm _so_ going to start shipping Merthur!"

Mordred really couldn't have cared less if he'd been trying.

"We have been past this tree before!" insisted one Terrence to another. "I'm telling you, we have!"

Towards the back of the procession of evil, the captive authors were chuckling.

"Jaq, this is brilliant!" Kizzia whispered.

XxMileen-chanxX nodded, and was having to clutch at her stomach, which hurt from having laughed so much. "How long do you think it will take for them to figure it out?"

Jaq shrugged. "Oh… I don't know. Several more runs."

They all sniggered.

"How do they get out of the perpetual forest?" wondered Kizzia.

"Well," Jaq explained. "Technically, it's just a gif, a video clip that's only a few seconds long, so all they have to do is stop watching it. But first they have to realise that they're in one!"

They all roared with laughter at that, and then pretended to be coughing when they realised they were attracting attention.

"So…" XxMileena-chanxX muttered. "When you wrote Morgause that letter…?"

"Yeah. I was pretending to surrender our battle strategies in exchange for our lives. She _thinks_ that she's heading towards a secret enemy camp, to ambush it."

"That's brilliant," marvelled Kizzia. "But where's the gif running from?"

"Gaius' computer," Jaq explained. "I stole Morgana's phone and texted him from there. It's a really long story."

"I just can't believe they didn't notice that we were walking straight into fake trees. They're really stupid," XxMileena-chanxX giggled some more.

"Yeah, well…" Kizzia shrugged. "In fairness, the author's descriptions are terrible, so everything looks pretty fake around here."

"Now, what we have to do is take advantage of the distraction to escape," Jaq told them. "It will buy the others some time as well. They might be stuck here for ages, especially with Morgana in charge."

"A heroic escape?" XxMileena-chanxX grinned. "It's my time to shine… I'LL GET MY SPORK OF DOOM!"

"Hey?" yelled a Terrence. "I'm sure we've been past that tree before."

Morgause rolled her eyes, but suddenly the gif restarted, changing the direction of the wind, and they got stuck like that.

**.**

Arthur was bunking off school and going to bed early: he had an important experiment to conduct. Aredian would forgive him for missing his class. Actually, Aredian probably wouldn't, but Aredian would just have to deal with it. Arthur had had enough of his shirt disappearing overnight.

Every night the same thing happened: he put one on before he went to bed, and in the morning it had mysteriously disappeared. He couldn't keep buying new shirts! Actually, he could keep buying new shirts, because he was the richest person in Camelot, but that wasn't really the point. It was more a matter of principle.

So, Arthur went to bed, shirt on, and pretended to sleep.

After about an hour, he heard the door creak open. He resisted the urge to jump out of bed, grab the nearest weapon and yell things. Instead he just lay there, trying to look relaxed as he prepared to be robbed of his shirt, and of his dignity!

There was a horrid, ominous scurrying noise, like a swarm of beetles creeping across the floor towards his bed.

Suddenly, it was on his bed. Something very light was sitting on his chest, and he could feel the strings of his shirt being untied.

It was now or never.

He opened his eyes.

There was an elf sitting on Arthur Pendragon's chest; a medium-sized, green-skinned elf, with big, worried eyes.

The first thing Arthur thought was: _Arrrgghh! I'm being molested by a fairy._

Then they both screamed at each other. Arthur jumped off his bed and onto the floor, where something went '_squelch!'_ beneath his foot.

The elf that had formerly been on his chest screamed. "You just trod on Norman!"

Arthur lifted his foot up slowly, to reveal a green, sticky mess. "It's alright," said the green sticky mess, peeling itself off Prince Pendragon's foot. "I'm fine."

"Norman, you are not fine!" insisted the first elf. "You're flat!"

Norman shook himself out a bit. "There now, that's better." And it was. Arthur thought he was probably hallucinating.

Norman gestured to underneath the bed. "Come on out, guys. I think this young gentlemen here would like us to explain ourselves."

Arthur nodded dumbly at Norman, whose expression was quite reassuring, and out from under the bed trooped about a dozen green elves, looking really rather ashamed of themselves, with their eyes wide and pitiful. Arthur almost considered forgiving them on the spot.

"Why don't you sit down, and we'll tell you all about it?" suggested Norman.

Arthur sat on the bed, and stared down at the little green elves, all of whom collected themselves at his feet, looking up at him.

"Have you ever heard of a story called: The Elves and The Shoe Maker?"

"Oh yes!" replied Arthur, clapping his hands together gleefully. "My Daddy used to read that one to me all the time when I was little! It's about little elves who make shoes at night for a shoe maker who can't make enough…"

"Yes, yes," said Norman, batting his little hand at Arthur. "We know what it's about. We're the elves!"

Arthur gaped at them. "You're the elves?"

Norman turned to the first elf, the one who Arthur had found on his chest. "Is that not what I just said, Harry?"

"I believe it is, Norman."

"Yes, well, we have received a better offer. That is… some of your… err… Harry… could you take it? He's making me uncomfortable. He won't stop staring at me."

"Of course Norman. Look, Arthur, we're really all a bit embarrassed about this, to be honest. But the truth is that we were employed by some of your fangirls to steal your shirt every night while you were sleeping… Maybe it wasn't right, but the money's good and there aren't that many jobs for small green people in today's economy, I'm afraid."

Arthur sat and stared at them contemplatively for a while. Then he said, "I have fangirls?" with the biggest grin you can possibly imagine on his face.

**.**

Gwaine had been looking for Merlin ever since the slippery little servant hadn't come back to Aredian's afternoon classes. He didn't see why _he_ should get to bunk off. It wasn't as if he had anything important to do, other than saving Camelot from evil and all that, which, actually, he was probably still supposed to be pretending to not know about.

Eventually, he found himself trooping off to ask Kilgharrah, who always seemed to know the answer to everything anyway.

"He went through there a while ago," answered Kilgharrah, who had moved on to playing Poker with Paralelsky.

Gwaine followed Kilgharrah's tail to the entrance to the similair, and found Merlin where he had been for hours, gaping at his reflection in the mirrors.

"Merlin?" Gwaine called out to him. "What is this place?"

"I don't know," Merlin replied. "But have you seen your reflection in these mirrors? It shows you with a moustache!"

He pointed to the mirrors, and Gwaine went to go and look for himself. "No it doesn't. It shows me stuck in a barrel."

"That's weird," they both decided.

"I wonder what they are…" mumbled Merlin.

What they were was continuity mirrors: mirrors that show the characters not how they are in the story currently, but how they ought to be, if only the author had been concentrating.

Outside, in the dragon's cave, two plot holes had been triggered by this jiggery-pokery-ing into the author's continuity, and WalkingWit and LadyWallace found themselves being invited to join a game of Poker.

"What does that one do?" asked Gwaine, pointing to one mirror than looked different to all the others, "What's the writing on the top?"

"I dunno," Merlin shrugged. "It's weird. It's not a language I know. Something about 'erised'?"

Both of them shrugged and forgot about it.

Just then, on the other side of the room, a door drew its way into existence. It was as if, on the other side of the door, someone was tracing its outline with a pencil, and the imprint of a door was now appearing on the wall of the cave. But this wasn't just any door. This was a large, impressive oak door, with great big panels and rusty hinges. The last bit of it to scribble itself into existence was a round, brass knocker that then began to turn…


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: hehe. Hi. Err... :S I am aware that this has taken a long time. A stupidly long time. Sorry. But it's not insanely long! I am making an effort to shorten chapters just for you. I'll get back to the proper plot in Camelot and if you gave me ideas/I said you would make an appearance that will happen. I just needed to explain what was behind the door. Also... I thought I might as well make fun of my long absence. I'm sorry I haven't been updating/reviewing/replying/anything else you might expect. I have a fabulous excuse but I'll spare you the joy of my a/n getting any more rambly (it's a word if I say it's a word, m'kay?). It's been a long time and I'm nervous about this, but I figured you deserved me to stop withholding it. I hope it doesn't disappoint. **

* * *

The door slid open and behind it stood a small child with a camera that Merlin had the sudden urge to describe as 'Muggle', although he didn't know what 'Muggle' meant.

"Hello," said the small child, smiling toothily. "I'm Colin Creevey, from the Harry Potter fandom. Merlin's beard!" he exclaimed suddenly, gawping at the pair of them. "You're Merlin, aren't you? I recognise you from your chocolate frog card!"

Merlin didn't really know what to make of any of this. He turned to Gwaine, confused. "Merlin's beard?" he asked. "Do I actually have that moustache the mirrors were showing me?"

Gwaine shook his head.

"Oh my!" yelped Colin, as if someone had pinched him. "This must be your first contact! I'm not really supposed to deal with those, you know; I'm only a first year."

Merlin and Gwaine nodded as if they knew what any of that meant.

Colin leant forwards into the story to have a little look around.

"Oh…" he murmured. "A similair. Nice. You don't see these often, most computers autocorrect that typo."

Gwaine turned to Merlin and mouthed: "Nutcase."

"I like your door," Colin commented, knocking approvingly on the dark oak.

"_Our_ door?" Merlin wasn't having any of this. "It's not got anything to do with us. It just drew itself there, and then you walked through it."

Gwaine nodded decisively. They were not being held responsible for this one. No way. Colin sneakily snapped another photograph of Merlin looking baffled and annoyed. "Anyway," Colin cleared his throat. "You'd better come through, before the author notices."

"What do you mean 'before the author notices'?" demanded Merlin. "The author knows everything!"

"Ah! A common misconception, I'm afraid. We're off-plot, at the moment, and she has no idea what we're doing. But she could start writing either of you at any minute, so I suggest you get into the corridor, where you're safe."

Merlin and Gwaine looked at one another in amazement. "We're safe from the author in that corridor you're standing in?"

"Oh yes," Colin told them. "Quite safe."

It was hard to tell which of the two characters was more desperate to cram every one of their respective limbs through the doorway, and they eventually landed in one giant heap on the other side. Colin shut the door.

**.**

_A/N: hi. Im not really feeling like i want to rite any more of this becayse tbh not many eople are reading it and some who are aren't being positive but leave men reviews and im just feeling bad about mnyself now. its not nice so im going to but this stroy on haitus for a bit till i feel better about things im not holding hostage for reviews or anything (tho reviews would be nice) i just dont have any inspration. if your one of the nice people whose reading and then im sorry :) _

**.**

There was a sudden whirring noise in Camelot and some clicking, as if a computer was being turned on, or off. Then, from somewhere, someone yelled: "Hey! Who turned out all the lights?" But it was hard to tell who this someone was, because it had suddenly become pitch black.

"Ow!" yelled someone else, rather indignantly. "Who put that wall there?"

"Who said that?"

"Who are you?"

"_Where_ are _you_?"

"I don't know! I can't see anything."

"Hm… good point. I'll come towards you and we'll figure it out together."

There was a pause.

"Am I any closer?"

"How should I know?"

"Guys? Someone's standing on my foot…"

"Oh, sorry, pardon me, excuse me. Wrong fandom. If I could just squeeze through here… Does anyone know where the lights are around here?"

"No!"

"Gaius!"

"Oh, good, yes. Get Gaius. He always knows what's going on."

"Gaius?"

"GAIUS!"

"Hm? I was having a nap… Who turned off all the lights?"

"Oh, not this again…"

"Gaius, we don't know. That's the problem."

"Is it a power cut?"

"A what?"

"Never mind. Oh, I know! Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

"Turning _what_ off and on again? What powers Camelot anyway?"

"Love!"

"Shut up, you fruitcake."

"Hot water?"

"Money? Makes the world go round, doesn't it?"

"MAGIC!"

"Who said that? I'll have you executed!"

"Hush, Uther. Now is really not the time for all that."

"It's Crazy!Uther, I'll have you know! I've been retagged!"

"Have you really?"

"Yes, I would have thought you could tell…"

"I can't _see_ anything, can I?"

"Oh… Yeah…"

"Will you all shut up for a minute?"

"Actually, that's a good point."

Someone sighed. "What's a good point?"

"How many of us are there here?"

"I don't know! I can't exactly count."

"_I'm_ here!"

"Well, that's helpful, thank you."

"Gaius, any ideas?"

"Oh, no… She wouldn't!"

"Who wouldn't?"

"She… she… couldn't!"

"Gaius?"

"The lazy cow!"

"Gaius!"

"I am not sure…"

"Gaius, you're never sure, but you're always right."

"I'll try not to let that go to my head. As I was saying, I am not sure, for I have only heard rumours, whispers, from characters long deleted, of this ever having happened… But it is possible, I think for an author to stop writing a story."

"Well, of course it's possible," someone scoffed. "They finish, don't they. Is that what's happened? Because I don't remember us reaching a very satisfying conclusion."

"Oh no, that is definitely not what happened. We would know if we had been completed. There's a certain sense of smugness a story gains from it, a sense of superiority. This confusion, this darkness, this can only be gained from being abandoned."

"Abandoned?"

"Yes. I fear our author has placed us on hiatus. And, from what I have heard, the longer we are here I am afraid that this void of darkness will only worsen. We may forget what it is like to actually exist, to be an individual."

There was a fearful pause. "How long will it last?"

"I'm afraid I cannot say. She may never bother to finish writing us. It may be our destiny to languish in this darkness for eternity."

**.**

Merlin and Gwaine got up and looked around themselves.

"Funny colour scheme," Merlin commented, eventually.

Colin nodded in agreement.

The walls of the corridor were a bright, almost blinding white that made your eyes itch if you stared at them for too long, and the only other colour was an offensively garish blue border running along the edges.

Gwaine squinted at it. "Eurgh…" he mumbled. "It's like being inside Delftware…"

The corridor itself was fairly narrow and ran endlessly in either direction, at least, as far as they could see. It probably stopped somewhere. Every few paces or so along was a new, interesting-looking door, and they were all shut. Behind some of the doors there appeared to be flashing lights and strange noises.

They began to march away from their door, down the corridor; where they were going, only Colin knew.

"Welcome to fanfictiondotnet!" Colin announced happily. "Before you say anything, there are a few things you will need to know… Err… I have some difficulty remembering things, so I'm going to get my pamphlet out." Colin rooted around in his bag for the pamphlet. "I'm actually a trainee guide," he told them nervously.

"Really?" muttered Gwaine. "We'd never have guessed."

"Okay…" Colin opened his pamphlet and began to read it. "You know what, I'm supposed to take questions at the end, but since you both look so confused, I think I might do that bit now."

"Why did you say it was 'our door'?" asked Merlin.

"Oh… That's easy. The shape of the door is chosen by the viewer, not the drawer."

The looks on Gwaine's and Merlin's faces told Colin that was not as easy to understand as he had though it was.

Colin tried again. "The person, or persons, observing the door being drawn influence what it looks like. That's why all of the doors to different fanfictions are different." He gestured to the doors they were walking past.

"Wait…" Merlin stopped walking. "All these doors lead to different fanfictions?"

"Yep!"

"Cool…" murmured Gwaine, grinning and reaching out to open one.

"You really mustn't do that," Colin told him. "You have to have typed permission from an author to initiate a Crossover."

"What?"

"A Crossover. It's when two different fanfiction worlds collide. Wow. I never realised a first contact could be so much work… You have to explain even the really obvious things!"

"Wait… Permission from an author?" asked Merlin, frowning. "But… authors are evil! They make us do things we don't want to do! And they spy on us when we go to the toilet!"

Gwaine giggled.

"Err… Actually, that's just your author. And we're monitoring her pretty closely." Colin took another picture of Merlin.

"Why do you keep taking pictures of me?" demanded Merlin, his gruff, manly voice on the verge of exploding.

"It's just in case I get a canon spot test."

"A what?"

"A canon spot test, to check I've been sticking to canon. We have to prove that we stick to character and do our jobs; otherwise we're not allowed to leave our stories."

Merlin did not appear to understand any of what he'd said and Colin realised he wasn't doing a very good job of explaining how Fanfictiondotnet was run. "Merlin, I think you've got the wrong idea about things. Most characters like their jobs. In fact, most characters can influence the author and make them write what they want them to write. Authors are always saying: _the characters just write themselves!_ We find that pretty funny over here. I think it might be our site motto. Anyway, point is, most authors are puppets. isn't run by authors, Merlin. At the top, it's run by characters. It was founded by the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1998, using a man called Xing Li as a disguise. The characters of the show thought it would be a nice way to relax from the stressful storylines, sometimes they take a holiday and swap with the fanfiction characters and nobody notices. Except, nobody anticipated whump." Colin shook his head sadly. "That was quite a blow. How could we have seen it coming? We thought they loved us. We didn't know they would want to hurt us. So… it's a more complicated system than it was originally intended to be. But is the only fanfiction site in the world set up and run by the characters, Merlin. And don't you forget it. Oh, and who are you, by the way?"

"I'm Gwaine," said Gwaine, who had been completely disregarding Colin's entire speech (most of which had been read off the pamphlet anyway) and was opening the nearest door to have a look inside.

"Don't bother them!" Colin snapped, shutting the door. "They haven't been published yet and they're busy rehearsing."

"Rehearsing?" asked Merlin, as they carried on down the corridor.

"Yes! They have to practise their lines to make sure they don't mess up! Don't you know that roughly half of the typos in a fanfic are the fault of the characters?"

Merlin shrugged.

"Do you know anything about fanfiction at all?"

"Not really. Only that we were in one and that was the reason why everything was going crazy."

"No, no, no, Merlin. You've got it wrong. You weren't _in_ a fanfiction. You _are_ a fanfiction."

"What? But I'm Merlin! The most powerful warlock of all time!"

"Cool, dude," said someone from behind him, who sounded awfully familiar. "Me too. Apparently."

Merlin turned around, and was suddenly face to face with himself. Only, this version of himself was wearing sunglasses, and had his arm slung around a pregnant Morgana's shoulders.

"Argh!" screamed Merlin suddenly. "Evil witch!" And he tried to shoot a spell at her, but it didn't work.

Morgana started crying.

"There, there, babe," cooed the Merlin in sunglasses. He looked up and glared at himself. "What was that for, man?"

Merlin gaped. "Are you dating Morgana?"

"No, of course not," sunglasses!Merlin laughed. "We're married. Why are you picking on my pregnant wife?"

"I don't know…" muttered Merlin, too confused to know what to do. "Force of habit?"

"Not cool, other me, not cool," said sunglasses!Merlin, before meandering off back from whence he came.

Merlin turned to Colin for an explanation. "That'll just be an AU future Mergana," he told them confidently, as if that made any sort of sense. "Wait, where's Gwaine?"

"I got bored of taking instructions from a two-year-old!" he yelled at them, from a very long way down the corridor. "I'm going to see if there's a tavern around here somewhere…"

"I am not a two-year-old!" insisted Colin, storming after him. "I'm a first year! And I've been a first year for the last seven years!"

Merlin shot him a puzzled look.

"Characters in a fanfiction don't age, Merlin! We just repeat the same chapters again and again and again, forever!"

Merlin considered this. He didn't believe a word of it. But something important was bothering him. "How come my magic didn't work in the corridor?"

"Nobody's magic works in the corridor," said Colin. "We had to level the playing field."

"To stop raging battles of good and evil?" asked Merlin.

Colin shrugged. "Actually, it was more about stopping Fred and George setting off Filibuster fireworks, but yeah, let's go with the good and evil thing."

A long way down the other end of the corridor, far away from them, there was a sudden shriek of: "We were on a break!"

To which the response was: "I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."

This did not sound quite right, but they carried on after Gwaine regardless.

"We've had lots of reports about your story," Colin said to Merlin, as they jogged along, following the sounds of Gwaine's gloating.

"Really?" wondered Merlin.

"You can't catch me!" yelled Gwaine.

"Yes," said Colin.

"Who's 'we'?"

"I'm the gingerbread man!" announced Gwaine, for whom over-exertion and excitement was not good.

"The administrators. We patrol the corridors and wait for reports of abuse from site users," Colin explained. "Like that."

Merlin didn't know what he meant by the last sentence, until he saw Colin was pointing up at the ceiling, where a small piece of paper had just zipped out of what appeared to be a ventilation system, and was now wafting down to land in the little boy's hand.

Colin laughed. "Perfect timing! It's a complaint about your story!"

"What does it say?"

"Bla… bla… bla… bla… mentally scarring… bla… bla… bla… Can't sleep at night… bla… bla… bla… Having to see a therapist… bla… bla… All the usual stuff. Oh and apparently no one needs to imagine Geoffrey of Monmouth without his shirt on. Ew."

Merlin pulled a face. "True that."

"It's reports like this that mean we've been trying to establish a connection with your story for months."

"You have?"

"Yes." Colin grimaced. "Usually it's easy. We just slip our doors in on the back of a typo or an anachronism, but Gaius has been patching up the errors faster than we can get to them. It's really very annoying. And, of course, we can't do anything while the author's looking. Your author is really very unusually aggressive, isn't she?"

Merlin nodded morosely.

"They're not normally like that."

"Thanks," muttered Merlin, glumly. "That makes me feel so much better."

"Anyway, by my calculations, you're all ready for some pretty serious counselling, and we have some professionals here who can take care of that. But we'll have to be sneaky. The author can't notice that you're gone."

"Won't she have noticed already?"

"Nah," Colin shrugged. "You've only been gone a second."

"No I haven't!"

"Yes you have. Time passes differently here. Besides, she won't notice if one of the others says your line for you just this once. They never do, they just think they typed the wrong name." Colin chuckled. "Authors are so gullible… Ah! Here he is!"

Gwaine was somewhere in the middle of a very large, very drunken crowd.

"Hey Merlin! Hey Kevin! I've made some new friends!"

"Hey Merlin!" yelled the crowd, who, now that they had got closer, could see was entirely made up of Gwaines.

"Wait…" muttered Colin. "You're Sir _Gawain_, aren't you?" he pointed at one of the many identical drunken Irish mop-heads, who was boasting about beating a 'green knight'. "I just got confused because of the spelling! Wow! Can I have a picture? I've never _seen_ this many knights of Camelot in the same place before! And especially not the same one!"

"Sure!" the crowd of Gwaines mumbled, grinning at him. "Cheese!"

Colin clicked the shutter and the bright flash from the camera made the numerous drunken Gwaines shriek and scurry off in different directions. Colin quickly grabbed their Gwaine by the scruff of the neck to prevent him from doing the same.

"You know," Colin told Gwaine, as the crowd of him dispersed. "I met your ghost once."

Gwaine stared at him and Colin pretended he hadn't said anything.

It was up to Merlin to begin the conversation again. "So… You said before that the author couldn't see us?"

"Of course not," Colin smiled smugly. "You're not in the story anymore."

"Okay…" Merlin tried to enjoy his newfound sense of freedom, and maintain a level head at the same time. It was difficult. Gwaine was not trying at all. "But before, when we were in the story, you said the author couldn't see us then, didn't you?"

Colin nodded. "Ah. Yeah. You were off-plot: the author's attention was focused on a different part of the story."

Merlin nodded. "I think Gaius mentioned that before…"

"It's important to be able to tell when you are and aren't off-plot, that will be the best time to sneak our agents in."

"Agents?"

"Yes. We have an entire SWAT admin team working round the clock monitoring your fanfic. Your author was bumped last week from 'seriously dangerous' to 'dangerously serious'; her error-count has been increasing tenfold with every chapter she publishes."

Merlin looked slightly nauseous. "SWAT admin team?"

"You should be flattered. They're the best in the business. At the moment it's the cast of Inception. They're the only ones qualified enough for this high level of nonsensery, and so their slots on the film have been filled by fanfiction characters. It's a confusing film as it is, so it doesn't matter if they get a few lines wrong here and there."

Merlin nodded as if he understood any of that.

However, before Colin could spend any more time confusing them, a loud siren sounded in the corridor, accompanied by flashing lights and the following announcement:

"COLIN CREEVEY00079182436 REPORT TO YOUR FANFICTION. IT IS BEING READ. REPEAT: IT IS BEING READ. THIS IS A READ ALERT. COLIN CREEVEY00079182436 REPORT TO YOUR FANFICTION."

"That's me!" squealed Colin, dropping his pamphlet on the floor in excitement.

"COLIN CREEVEY00079182436 THIS IS A READ ALERT. REPORT TO YOUR DOOR IN FIVE LINES."

"Eep! No one ever reads my story!" Colin jumped up and down, grinning like an idiot. "You don't have to tell me twice!" He began to scamper off down the corridor, before turning around and hurriedly telling Merlin and Gwaine, "You need to go to the Functioning Room. That's where the SWAT Admin Team work. I'm off!"

Colin legged it away down the corridor, yipping with glee.

Gwaine turned to Merlin and shrugged, prepared to disregard everything Colin had said and wander off on an adventure, but Merlin asked him, "Functioning Room?" with a frown. "Do you think that's what he meant?"

"Who cares?" responded Gwaine honestly.

Just then they noticed a large wooden signpost that may or may not have previously been there, directing them towards the _Function Room_.

"Function Room," muttered Merlin. "I'll bet that's it. Function_ing_ Room doesn't make any sense. Let's follow that signpost."

Gwaine shrugged again. "Whatever. You're the all-powerful warlock."

Merlin didn't bother responding. Either Gwaine knew his secret, and that was his idea of a joke, or he didn't know his secret, and that was his idea of a joke. Whichever it was, he wasn't exactly posing much of a threat.

The walk down the corridor to the Function Room was largely uneventful. The word 'largely' is used here because one or two interesting things occurred. Gwaine tried to break into a number of fanfictions, but Merlin stopped him; a blue blur ran past them so quickly that it was impossible to tell whether it was a Smurf or a Na'vi; and a strange-smelling man wearing a sandwich board that read: '_ffnet is going to be shut down because of copyright infringements!' _screamed at them that the time had come to flee to Google.

"Here we are," observed Merlin, rather unnecessarily, as he splayed his hand out across the door marked _Function Room_, before pushing it open. There simply are not words to express how unprepared the pair were for the sight that awaited them on the other side of that door.

**.**

Back in what was presumably Camelot (no one could tell, it had lost all sense of shape: they weren't going to be complaining about the author's ineffective descriptions any time soon), someone coughed.

"So…" said someone else, or it could have been the same person, they were all starting to sound the identical. "What do we do now?"

Another person shrugged. At least they thought they shrugged, but they weren't sure. And now they'd spent so much time thinking about shrugging, they couldn't remember the question. Who had asked the question, anyway? Was it them?

"We should count, so we don't lose track of time."

"That's a good point, how long has it been since this started?"

No one said anything in response to that, which worried them all, however many of them there were.

Someone started humming, which seemed a reasonable enough way to pass the time, so they all joined in.

**.**

Inside the _Function Room_, Merlin and Gwaine were spectacularly bamboozled. They had found themselves in a room of average width, but impossible height, with an infinite number of different floors, on which numerous ridiculous different things were all being done at once. The first floor they were immediately confronted with was a ballroom, and a large number of people in floaty, formal dresses were swanning around quite cheerfully to music that seemed to be coming from nowhere in particular. A few floors up from that a very serious board meeting was being conducted, where a short, stocky, red-faced man in a suit was banging his fist on the table and yelling a lot about the predictions for market maintenance over the next term, and, as he enunciated, was spitting unnecessarily in the face of the woman sitting in the swivel chair next to him. On the floor directly above that there appeared to be some sort of chess tournament taking place, above that there was a poorly attended screening of _Singin' in the Rain _and just above that there was a carpenter's workshop.

Gwaine squinted as far towards the top of the row of infinite floors as he could see, following a long thin line that was dangling down the front with a hook on the end. This hook was waggling from side to side, and wasn't achieving much other than occasionally getting stuck up one of the noses of a ballroom dancer who ventured too far or was unfortunately dipped by a daring partner. The long, thin line next to it eventually managed to hook the hat of one of the chess-players', and after an exceptionally faint cry of, _"I got something!"_ the line and the hat disappeared skywards.

Gwaine pointed way up to where Merlin couldn't see. "I think they're fishing."

At this last word there was an odd, wooden, groaning, rickety-rockety sort of noise, like complaining cogs, and the floors suddenly flipped themselves around, so one of the very high floors, that had previously been almost out of sight, was now on ground level, and everyone else they could see was one floor up. The floor they were now confronted with was a pair of fisherman who had been dangling their legs over the edge, and now found themselves at a bit of a loss.

The first fisherman, who was wearing a pilfered chess-player's hat, scowled at Gwaine. "Just what do you think you're playing at, eh?"

"Sorry," Gwaine shrugged.

None of the other floors seemed particularly bothered. They had all continued on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. For all Merlin and Gwaine knew, nothing out of the ordinary _had_ happened.

"Um," said Merlin. "We're looking for the cast of _Inception_? We're from a fanfiction, and it's all gone horribly wrong and Colin said to come to the _Functioning Room_…"

"Well that's where you went wrong then, isn't it?" observed the hat-less fisherman. "This is the Function Room. This is where holds all our functions. All characters welcome, of course, both malevolent and benign, as long as you keep your morality to your fictions. It can get a bit intense otherwise."

Merlin blinked.

The hat-wearing fisherman sighed. "You want the _Functioning Room_. Go back out into the corridor, turn left, head straight down through the whole of _Anime/Manga _and you want your first right before you reach _Plays/Musicals_. Alright?"

Of course, it was not alright. It made no sense whatsoever. But the man looked angry, he had already been deprived of a space in which to dangle his feet, and they had seen that he had no problem stealing hats. Who knew what else he would resort to if pushed? Merlin and Gwaine backed out of the _Function Room_ and decided to pretend they'd never seen it in the first place, which, honestly, is how the cast of _Merlin_ deal with most things most of the time.

When they had crept out into the corridor and shut the door behind them, they backed straight into a madman. The madman didn't look familiar to either of them, but that was because neither Merlin nor Gwaine had ever seen _Doctor Who_ or even _Torchwood_, and so the scrambled _Captain Jack Harkness_ tag above the character's head wouldn't have made any sense even if they could have read the encryption. The character was stamped with the word STORY DELETED in bright, bold, red lettering, and he was wearing a sandwich board. The sandwich board read: "livejournal is stealing ff writers!" and it lacked any sense of imminent doom, but Merlin and Gwaine pretended to have been shocked by it all the same, so as not to cause offence.

"Flee!" yelled the madman.

"What?" asked Gwaine.

"Why?" asked Merlin.

"Flee!" repeated the madman. "Fanfiction is dying! There's no place for us here anymore! Flee! Flee while you still can!"

"Flee where?" inquired Merlin.

"Ask Jeeves!" the madman told them earnestly.

Gwaine frowned. "Why? Don't you know the answer?"

"No!" the madman shook his head. "It's a homepage. A very safe homepage, you can get to anywhere on the web from there, just by searching! And you can't be tracked. Not like you can if you go to Google." He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. "No… That's what they expect you to do. _Everyone _goes to Google, they expect that. You have to be sneaky!"

Then the madman cackled and ran off, shrieking.

Gwaine turned to Merlin. "He said left, right?"

**.**

"Does anyone remember why we're here?"

There was silence in the blank, meaningless vacuum formerly known as Camelot.

"You know, I think there used to be something else, before this."

"What do you mean 'before'?"

"I don't really know."

"Are we nearly there yet? How long is this going to last?"

"Are we nearly _where_? How long is _what_ going to last?"

"I'm not sure… It just sounded like the right thing to say."

"I'm confused."

"Me too."

"Who are you?"

"I don't know. Who am I?"

"I don't know. Who are you?"

"You just asked me that."

"Did I?"

"Did you what?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I'm confused."

"Me too."

"Who are you, anyway?"

"We're lost."

"Where were you going?"

"Nowhere. We think it's an expression."

"Oh."

"Did somebody turn the lights out?"

"What's light?"

"I think it's an expression. I'm so confused."

"Am I different from you? I don't feel different from you. I feel like we're all the same."

"I is just a word. It doesn't mean anything, does it?"

"Who am I?"

"I don't know. Who are you?"

"I'm so confused."

**.**

It was with a sense of trepidation that Merlin and Gwaine stood outside the door to the _Functioning Room_. Having taken so long to finally reach the place, they really, really didn't want to be disappointed; they wanted saviours, knights in shining armour (although Merlin was seriously dubious about the competency of knights in any sort of armour) to whisk them away from their big, bad author.

Merlin was fidgeting. He hopped from foot to foot in an anxious manner, repeatedly holding a hand out to knock on the door, then retracting it. Gwaine, although also nervous, was impatient, and could only put up with this sort of behaviour for so long.

"Oh give over, Merlin," he muttered, and rapped on the door very loudly, so that he had to be heard.

They waited.

"Come in," called someone who had a decidedly strange voice.

They pushed the door open cautiously and were greeted by the sight of four brightly-dressed people and a dog, all of whom appeared to be two-dimensional. Merlin and Gwaine peered down at themselves, to check that this wasn't merely the effect that the room had on people: it wasn't, they were as three-dimensional as ever.

"You're cartoons," Merlin observed.

"Jinkies, you're quick," muttered one of them, a short girl.

"Are you the cast of Inception?" Merlin persisted, in spite of the sarcasm, as Gwaine winked at the redhead in corner.

"Nope," the short girl replied. "You must be Gwaine and Merlin." She stuck her hand out for them to shake, and it was rather awkward considering that, when viewed sideways, she was just a line. They just about managed it. "I'm Velma and this is Scooby Doo and The Mystery Gang. I'm afraid the cast of Inception resigned; apparently the mindmuddlery was too much for them. So we were called in to help you instead."

"But… but they said that the cast of Inception were the best!"

"Please," snorted Velma. "They might be the best in the third dimension, sure. But we handle stuff they can't even dream of!" The Mystery Gang laughed at that, and Merlin wished someone would explain the joke to him.

"Yeah, like, zoinks! I'd like to see them handle all the ghosts and ghouls we catch!" declared a skinny boy wearing a green shirt.

"You guys catch ghosts?"

"Well, _we_ catch ghosts," answered Velma, gesturing to herself and the other two. "Shaggy and Scooby run away from ghosts."

"Hey, man! Like, not cool."

"Reh! Rot rool!"

"Your dog talks!" exclaimed Gwaine, who until that point had only been interested with flirting with the redheaded girl, which didn't appear to be going down particularly well with the blonde guy. Not that Gwaine was overly concerned.

The Mystery Gang stared at him. "Does your dog not talk?" asked the blonde guy.

"Like, maybe he's just shy," suggested Shaggy.

"And, anyway, the whole point is that they turn out not to be ghosts," said redhead.

"Actually, that reminds me," muttered Velma. "Fred, Daphne, check them!" she pointed at Merlin and Gwaine, and before they knew what was happening the blonde and the redhead had approached them out of nowhere and were tugging at the sides of their faces as if they were trying to pull them off. When nothing happened, they stepped back and apologised.

"Ouch!" Gwaine pouted.

Merlin stared at them all in confusion. His day was just getting weirder and weirder. "What was that for?"

"Sorry," Velma shrugged. "We have to check you're not someone else in disguise, wearing a mask. It's just a precaution."

"Does that happen often?" asked Merlin.

Fred nodded. "You'd be surprised."

Merlin remembered to remember that: he would try it out when he got back to Camelot, although it probably wouldn't be appreciated. None of his efforts to save Arthur's life ever were.

"Right." Velma clapped her hands. "I think we might be getting off-topic. You're here because there are some problems with your fanfiction. As you can see," she gestured to around the room, where numerous graphs and charts and bits of machinery were strewn about in a cluttered but scientific-looking manner. "For a start we have been monitoring your story's clichosity, that is its level of cliché, on our clichometer, and its readings are off the charts. Look!" She pointed to a chart where the line on the graph had indeed been drawn so that it literally came off the edge of the page and went all the way around the room on the walls, before disappearing under a desk. "Your story is so cliché it's less of a story and more a series of clichés that your author has regurgitated and assembled in a vaguely coherent manner."

"Ro-boy Relma," mumbled the dog. "Rarsh."

Velma scowled at him. "Merlin, Gwaine, come with me into the observatory. You've really got nothing to worry about, I promise. We've been keeping a close watch on your story and everything's going fine. The last I saw Gaius was on the toilet, Uther was asking Geoffrey to perform a puppet show with him and Lancelot was sulking. Apart from the obvious character defects and spelling mistakes, everyone's okay."

She beckoned them through into an adjacent room, ignoring Merlin's outraged cries of, _"You watch us on the toilet too!"_, and pointed at dozens of blank screens. "See? Everything's fine."

"Um. You might want to turn them on," Gwaine pointed out.

"They are on," Velma insisted, looking up to see what they saw: dozens of blank screens. After staring at them in confusion for a second, and then fiddling with some buttons in a vain attempt to get them working, she squeaked. "Jeepers! She's put them on hiatus! Mystery Gang, get in here!"

The other strange, flat people entered the room and stared at the blank screens with similar expressions of horror on their faces. Merlin and Gwaine were experiencing sinking feelings in their stomachs: this could not be good.

Eventually Fred cleared his throat and muttered hoarsely, "Let's split up and look for clues…"


End file.
